A COMPOSITION WITH CONSCIENCE.
Lully, the composer, being once thought mortally ill, his friends called a confessor, who, finding the patient’s state critical, and his mind very ill at ease, told him that he could obtain absolution only one way—by burning all that he had by him of a yet unpublished opera. The remonstrance of his friends was in vain; Lully burnt the music, and the confessor departed well pleased. The composer, however, recovered, and told one of his visitors, a nobleman who was his patron, of the sacrifice he had made to the demands of the confessor. “And so,” cried the nobleman, “you have burnt your opera, and are really such a blockhead as to believe in the absurdities of a monk!” “Stop, my friend, stop,” returned Lully; “let me whisper in your ear: I knew very well what I was about—I have another copy.”