Paesiello, with Domenico Cimarosa (1749-1801), was the leading representative of the _buffa_ till the advent of Mozart. As Hadow suggests, he might have achieved real greatness had he been less constantly successful. ‘His life was one triumphal procession from Naples to St. Petersburg, from St. Petersburg to Vienna, from Vienna to Paris.’ Ferdinand of Sicily, Empress Catharine of Russia, Joseph II of Austria, and even Napoleon were successively his patrons; and his productiveness was such that he never had time, even had he had inclination, to criticise his own works. Of his ninety-four operas only one, ‘The Barber of Seville,’ is of historic interest, for its popularity was such that, until Rossini, no composer dared to treat the same theme. Cimarosa deserves perhaps more extended notice than many others on account of his _Matrimonio segreto_, written in Russia, which won unprecedented success there and in Italy. It is practically the only one of all the works of composers just mentioned that has not fallen a victim to time. Its music is simple and tuneful, fresh and full of good humor. The eighteenth century public based its judgments solely on mere externals--a pleasing tune, a brilliant singer, a sumptuous _mise-en-scène_ caught its favor, the merest accident or circumstance might kill or make an opera. To-day a composer is carried off in triumph, to be hissed soon after by the same public. Rivalry among composers is the order of the day. Sacchini, Piccini, Paesiello, Cimarosa, are successively favorites of Italian audiences; in London Christian Bach and Sacchini divide the public as Handel and Bononcini did before them; in Vienna Paesiello and Cimarosa are applauded with the same acclaim as Gluck; in St. Petersburg Galuppi,[6] Traetta, Paesiello, and Cimarosa follow each other in the service of the sovereign (Catharine II), who could not differentiate any tunes but the howls of her nine dogs; in Paris, at last, the leading figures become the storm centre of political agitations. All these composers’ names are glibly pronounced by the busy tongues of a brilliant but shallow society. Favorite arias, like Galuppi’s _Se per me_, Sacchini’s _Se cerca, se dice_, Piccini’s _Se il ciel_, are compared after the manner of race entries. Florimo, the historian of the Naples opera, dismissed the matter with a few words: ‘Piccini is original and prolific; Sacchini gay and light, Paesiello new and lithe, Cafaro learned in harmony, Galuppi experienced in stagecraft, Gluck a _filosofia economica_.’ They all have their merits--but, after all, the difference is a matter of detail, a fit subject for the gossip of an opera box. Even Gluck is but one of them, if his Italian operas are at all different the difference has escaped his critics.