had already worked. He explained to Cesarini how impossible it would be for him to attack the identical libretto which Paisiello had set; and it was arranged that Sterbini, the poet who had furnished Rossini with the "words" (as musicians say),[4] of _Torvaldo e Dorliska_, should perform a like service for him in connection with the _Barber_. Sterbini and Rossini understood one another as librettist and composer always should do; and they lived together in the same house--"the house assigned to Luigi Zamboni," as the contract has it--until the work was finished. The admirable unity of the _Barber_, in which a person without previous information on the subject could scarcely say whether the words were written for the music or the music for the words, may doubtless in a great measure be accounted for by the fact that poet and musician were always together during the composition of the opera; ready mutually to suggest and to profit by suggestions. Nor was it a slight advantage that the two operatic partners were living together "in the house assigned to Luigi Zamboni." Signor Luigi Zamboni was to take the part of Figaro; and we may be sure that "Largo al fattotum," set to music as soon as it was written, was handed to Zamboni as soon as it was composed. Poet and composer had with them Beaumarchais' comedy of the _Barber of Seville_, and Paisiello's opera founded thereupon. Paisiello's opera was already known to Rossini, but he does not seem to have been quite familiar with Beaumarchais' comedy. Sterbini read it to him from beginning to end, and it was then decided what in Beaumarchais' comedy should be adopted--the principal dramatic scenes had of course to be taken--and what in Paisiello's libretto should be rejected. The queer incidental scenes for La Jeunesse who does nothing but sneeze, and L'Eveillé who does nothing but yawn, were cut out; and the work was so divided as to give Rossini the opportunity of composing a far greater number of musical pieces than are to be found in Paisiello's work. In dialogue scenes where Paisiello had contented himself with making the interlocutory personages exchange long passages of recitative, Rossini allowed the characters on the stage to declaim, but supported their declamation, not by a succession of chords, but by brilliant themes for the orchestra. No such thoroughly musical opera had before been composed. The series of melodies was almost continuous, and the characters on the stage only ceased to sing for tuneful strains to be executed by the instrumentalists. This transfer of the current of melody from the voices to the instruments was new in Italy; but brilliant examples of it are of course to be found in Mozart's operas which were performed for the first time in Italy, just before Rossini's _Barber of Seville_. Sterbini was a most accommodating poet. He was quite prepared to carry out the composer's ideas, and did not object to alter, curtail