The omission of political satire is the more serious because it leaves as the central point of the plot an immorality which is not exactly justified, but not by any means seriously punished; only treated with a certain frivolity. The noble libertine is opposed by true and upright love, honest devotion to duty and honourable conduct; but these moral qualities are not made in themselves effective; the true levers of the plot are cunning and intrigue employed as weapons of defence. The whole piece appears in a doubtful light, the atmosphere surrounding Count Almaviva is impure, and the suppression of those circumstances which could alone make the phenomenon natural affects more or less the whole spirit of the plot, and deprives the dialogue of much of its point and double meaning. Beaumarchais might fairly plead that, having undertaken to give a true picture of the manners of his time, absolute truth of conception and detail was necessary to insure the right moral effect; it was for a later age to perceive how completely the author of the satire was himself under the influence of the time which he depicts and would fain improve. This justification is denied to the opera. It has no title to be considered as a picture of morals, neither can it pretend to exercise any direct influence, whether moral or {LE NOZZE DI FIGARO.} (80) political, on the minds of men. The dialogue is undoubtedly in many respects purer than in the comedy; but the plot and its motives, the chief situations, the whole point of view, become all the more decidedly frivolous. How came it, then the Mozart could choose such a subject for his opera, and that the public could accept it with approbation? It must in the first place be borne in mind that the facts on which the plot is founded, and the point of view from which these facts are regarded, had at that time substantial truth and reality; men were not shocked at seeing on the stage that which they had themselves experienced, and knew to be going on in their own homes. A later age is disgusted by the contrast between semblance and reality, and at the representation of immorality in all its nakedness; the taste of the time demands that it shall be shown after another form and fashion. A glance at the entertaining literature, and even at the operas of the last half of the eighteenth century, shows clearly that representation of immorality plays an important part therein in a form which bespeaks the temper and spirit of the time; and further, that a desire for the representation of moral depravity is an infallible symptom of moral disease. It cannot, therefore, be wondered at that a picture of the moral corruption which penetrated all classes, from the highest to the lowest, and which had brought all social and political relations to the verge of dissolution, should have been regarded with eager approbation and enjoyment. The age which produced and enjoyed "Figaro" took a lighter view of sensual