The extraordinary success of the opera[44] is attested by a notice of it[45] which proceeds to prove that this musical drama satisfies the eye, enchants the ear, does violence to the intellect, offends against morals, and suffers vice to trample upon virtue and good feeling. The author of the criticism accounts for the popularity of the opera by the quality of the music, which is beyond all expression grand:-- If ever a nation might be proud of one of its children, Germany may be proud of Mozart, the composer of this opera. Never was the greatness of the human mind more perceptible, never did music reach so high a level! Melodies which an angel might have conceived are accompanied by divinest harmonies, and those whose souls are in any degree susceptible to what is truly beautiful will agree with me in saying the ear is bewitched. At the same time he cannot refrain from the pious wish:--[See Page Image] {CRITIQUES ON DON GIOVANNI.} (141) Oh, that he had not so wasted the energies of his mighty mind!--that his judgment had been brought to the aid of his imagination, and had shown him a less miry path to fame! How can it please him that his name should appear set in diamonds upon a golden tablet, and the tablet suspended on a pillory? Spazier, who acknowledged Mozart's "true, unborrowed, unartificial wealth of ideas,"[46] and said of "Don Giovanni" that some of its single airs were worth more than whole operas by Paesiello,[47] remarks on another occasion:[48]-- The pleasure of seeing a genius strike out a new path with ease, which one feels would possess insurmountable obstacles to others, becomes pain and grief, which can only be turned to enjoyment again by minute study of the work, when such an artist puts forth his whole strength as Mozart has in "Don Juan," where he overwhelms his hearers with the vastness of his art, giving to the whole an almost boundless effect. His promise of a more minute description remained unfulfilled. The various notices of the work which followed its performance in other places were all of the same kind, both praise and blame recognising the fact that a novel and important phenomenon was being treated of.[49] After the performance in Weimar, Goethe wrote to Schiller (December 30, 1797) ^ Your hopes for the opera are richly fulfilled in "Don Juan"; but the work is completely isolated, and Mozart's death frustrates any prospect of his example being followed.[50] {DON GIOVANNI.} (142)