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After writing "Largo al fattotum," with the rapidity of an improvisator he handed the verses to Rossini, remarking—as Leopold II. remarked to Mozart with regard to the number of notes contained in the Seraglio—that there were "too many."

From somewhere unexpectedly appears a big man in an ill-fitting coat and skull cap, flanked on either side by a fiddler, who scrapes away and away, accompanying the improvisator in a plaintive minor key as he halts before the bride and intones his lay.

As far as direct attack in the form of broadsides, pamphlets and the like, Cibber is clearly innocent; however, like many actors, he was an expert improvisator of stage dialogue, and this in itself is a reason to believe that his side of the feud was kept up from the theater platform.

The great improvisator dashed recklessly into every thing that he thought would be interesting to an American traveler, but with the difficulty of his utterance in English, and the absence of any knowledge on his part of my name or history, it was evident he was a little embarrassed in what way to oblige me most; and the trouble on my side was, that I was too busy listening to find time for talking.

At this the great improvisator scratched his head, looked at the ceiling and then at the floor, after which he took several rapid strides up and down the room, and struck himself repeatedly on the forehead.