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For the music-lesson scene Rossini wrote a trio which has been lost; and thus an opportunity has been given Rosinas to interpolate what they please. The scene of the opera is laid at Seville, Spain. Count Almaviva has fallen in love with Rosina, the ward of Dr. Bartolo, with whom she resides, and who wishes to marry her himself.
So having despatched a message to my friend the captain of the 'Adventuress, that I had freight of value for him, I made my preparations to depart from Seville with such speed as I might, and to this end I sold my benefactor's house, with many of the effects, at a price much below their worth.
Listen: you have been told that yonder physician, to whose house you went but now, and these' here he repeated four or five names 'are the greatest of their tribe in Seville. It is not so. I am the greatest and the richest, and I do more business than any two of them. Do you know what my earnings have been this day alone?
I know of few things in this life more delicious than a ride in the spring or summer season in the neighbourhood of Seville. My favourite one was in the direction of Xeres, over the wide Dehesa, as it is called, which extends from Seville to the gates of the former town, a distance of nearly fifty miles, with scarcely a town or village intervening.
'You may stake your life on that, said Concha, and remembered the words ever after. 'It has been decided to make this journey from Seville to Madrid the opportunity of assassinating the Queen Regent. 'It will not be the first time they have tried, put in the General. 'No. But this time they will succeed, and it is to be here to- morrow night in Toledo.
Now welcome, steed and steel, What tidings do you bring of my fleet, What tidings of woe or weal?" "I'll tell thee tidings, lady, If my life thou wilt assure." "Tell on, Alfonzo Ramos, Thy life shall be secure." "Seville, Seville has fallen, To the arms of the Berber Moor." "But for my word thy head this day To the vultures had been tost!"
He appears to have remained at Seville, and to have retained this office until his death, on the 22d of February, 1512. His widow, Maria Corezo, enjoyed a pension of 10,000 maravedis. After his death, his nephew, Juan Vespucci, was nominated pilot, with a salary of 20,000 maravedis, commencing on the 22d of May, 1512. Peter Martyr speaks with high commendation of this young man.
Some of those monuments are, in truth, works of architecture of great merit; and among them that of the cathedral of Seville is distinguished for its gigantic dimensions, and for the richness and elegance of its structure.
Many travellers have told of the glories of Seville, to which ancient Moorish city I journeyed with all speed, sailing there up the Guadalquiver, and I have to tell of lands from which no other wanderer has returned to England, and must press on to them.
Ah! if I were only back in my own country, looking up at the white mountains! I have been insulted here, because I don't belong to this land of rogues and sellers of rotten oranges; and those hussies are all banded together against me, because I told them that not all their Seville jacques, and all their knives, would frighten an honest lad from our country, with his blue cap and his maquila!
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