s. Ford calls on her servants. Between them they
manage to lift the gigantic basket, and, while she calls her husband to
view the sight, carry it to the window and pitch it out bodily into the
Thames. The first scene of the third act is devoted to hatching a new
plot to humiliate the fat knight, and the second shows us a moonlit
glade in Windsor Forest, whither he has been summoned by the agency of
Dame Quickly. There all the characters assemble disguised as elves and
fairies. They give Falstaff a _mauvais quart d'heure_, and end by
convincing him that his amorous wiles are useless against the virtue of
honest burghers' wives. Meanwhile Nannetta has induced her father, by
means of a trick, to consent to her marriage with Fenton, and the act
ends with a song of rejoicing in the shape of a magnificent fugue in
which every one joins.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing about 'Falstaff' is that it was
written by a man eighty years old. It is the very incarnation of youth
and high spirits. Verdi told an interviewer that he thoroughly enjoyed
writing it, and one can well believe his words. He has combined a
schoolboy's sense of fun with the grace and science of a Mozart. The
part-writing is often exceedingly elaborate, but the most complicated
concerted pieces flow on as naturally as a ballad. The glorious final
fugue is an epitome of the work. It is really a marvel of contrapuntal
ingenuity, yet it is so full of bewitching melody and healthy animal
spirits that an uncultivated hearer would probably think it nothing but
an ordinary jovial finale. In the last act Verdi strikes a deeper note.
He has caught the charm and mystery of the sleeping forest with
exquisite art. There is an unearthly beauty about this scene, which is
new to students of Verdi. In the fairy music, too, he reveals yet
another side of his genius. Nothing so delicate nor so rich in
imaginative beauty has been written since the days of Weber.

It is impossible as yet to speak with any degree of certainty as to
Verdi's probable influence upon posterity. With all his genius he was
perhaps hardly the man to found a school. He was not, like his great
contemporary Wagner, one of the world's great revolutionists. His genius
lay not in overturning systems and in exploring paths hitherto
untrodden, but in developing existing materials to the highest
conceivable pitch of beauty and completeness. His music has nothing to
do with theories, it is the voice of nature s