Caricature, which emphasises certain characteristic features of an individual at the cost of others less striking must always be an objectionable mode of musical representation. The external features which can be exaggerated by the musician are limited and soon exhausted, the exaggeration of emotional expression to produce a comic effect is a very dangerous device, because music does not possess the resources which enable poetry and the formative arts to represent disproportions of caricature as amusing and comical rather than distorted and hideous. Mozart takes as the foundation for his musical representation a genuine pride, which is only led by chance impulses to express itself in an exaggerated and distorted manner, and it is this temporary self-contradiction which produces the comic effect. The musical device he employs for the purpose is the composition of the air in the traditional heroic form of opera seria, which is opposed to the situation of the moment as well as to the fault-finding words. The compass and employment of the voice show that Mozart had Storace in view, for whom he afterwards composed Susanna. Pulcherio's second air (4) is much more sketchily delineated. Eugenia and Bocconio, after their first meeting, are not on very good terms with each other, and the obliging friend seeks to reconcile them; he draws Bocconio's attention to Eugenia's beauty, and hers to Bocconio's amiability, and as he goes first to one and then to the other with his appeals, he pictures to himself the misery which is sure to follow the union of the two. The contrasting motifs to which the situation gives rise are arranged in animated alternation. The sketch, however, shows only the general design; and the share taken in it by the orchestra, doubtless a very important one, cannot be even approximately arrived at. A terzet (5 cf., Vol. II., p. 424) between Eugenia, Don Asdrubale and Bocconio is completely worked out, and causes regret that it was not inserted in a later opera, that so we might have heard it from the stage. Don Asdrubale coming to greet Bocconio's bride, the lovers in amazement recognise each other. Eugenia, who had been informed of Don Asdrubale's death in battle, falls half-swooning on a couch, and Bocconio hastens off to fetch {LO SPOSO DELUSO, 1784.} (63)