In Rome, Mozart gave a miraculous attestation of his quickness of ear, and extensive memory, by bringing away from the Sistine Chapel the "Miserere of Allegri," a work full of imitation and repercussion, mostly for a double choir, and continually changing in the combination and relation of the parts. This accomplished piece of thievery was thus performed:—the sketch was drawn out upon the first hearing, and filled up from recollection at home—Mozart then repaired to the second and last performance, with his manuscript in his hat, and corrected it.
The slow voluptuous movement of the style of dancing prevalent in Italy gave Mozart great pleasure; in the postscripts to his father's letters, which he generally addressed to his sister and playfellow, he speaks of this subject with as much zest as of his own art. Later in manhood he became a pupil of Vestris, and the gracefulness of his dancing was much admired, especially in the minuet.
About this time Mozart's voice began to break, and he ceased to sing in public, unless words were put before him; the violin he continued to play, but mostly in private. The alarming illnesses which had attacked his children on their journey kept Leopold Mozart in continual anxiety—the malaria of Rome and the heat of Naples were alike dreaded by him.
The travellers arrived at Naples in May, and fortunately procured cool and healthy lodgings. Here they visited the English Ambassador, Sir William Hamilton, whose acquaintance they had made in London, and whose lady was not only a very agreeable person, but a charming performer on the harpsichord. She trembled on playing before Mozart. The concerts given by the Mozarts in Naples were very successful, and they were treated with great distinction; the carriages of the nobility, attended by footmen with flambeaux, fetched them from home and carried them back; the queen greeted them daily on the promenade, and they received invitations to the ball given by the French Ambassador on the marriage of the Dauphin.
If Mozart had not been engaged to compose the carnival opera for Milan, he might have written that for Bologna, Rome, or Naples, as at these three cities offers were made to him, a proof of what his genius had effected in Italy.
The epoch at which Mozart's genius was ripe may be dated from his twentieth year; constant study and practice had given him ease in composition, and ideas came thicker with his early manhood—the fire, the melodiousness, the boldness of harmony, the inexhaustible invention which characterize his works, were at this time apparent; he began to think in a manner entirely independent, and to perform what he had promised as a regenerator of the musical art. The situation of his father as Kapell-meister, in Salzburg, indeed gave Mozart some opportunities of writing church music, but not such as he most coveted, the sacred musical services of the court being restricted to a given duration, and the orchestra but poorly supplied with singers; it was therefore his earnest desire to get some permanent appointment in which he could exercise freely his talent for composition, and reckon on a sufficient income. When childhood and boyhood had passed away, his quondam patrons ceased to wonder at, or feel interest in, his genius, and Mozart, whose early years had been spent in familiar intercourse with the principal nobility of Europe, who had been from court to court, and received distinctions and caresses unparalleled in the history of musicians, up to the period of his death gained no situation worthy his acceptance, but earned his fame in the midst of worldly cares and annoyances, in alternate abundance and poverty, deceived by pretended friendship, or persecuted by open enmity. The obstacles which Mozart surmounted in establishing the immortality of his muse, leave those without excuse who plead other occupations and the necessity of gaining a livelihood as an excuse for want of success in the art. Where the creative faculty has been bestowed, it will not be repressed by circumstances.
In the exterior of Mozart there was nothing remarkable; he was small in person, and had a very agreeable countenance, but it did not discover the greatness of his genius at the first glance. His eyes were tolerably large and well shaped, more heavy than fiery in the expression; when he was thin they were rather prominent. His sight was always quick and strong; he had an unsteady abstracted look, except when seated at the piano-forte, when the whole form of his visage was changed. His hands were small and beautiful, and he used them so softly and naturally upon the piano-forte, that the eye was no less delighted than the ear. It was surprising that he could grasp so much as he did in the bass. His head was too large in proportion to his body, but his hands and feet were in perfect symmetry, of which he was rather vain. The stunted growth of Mozart's body may have arisen from the early efforts of his mind; not, as some suppose, from want of exercise in childhood—for then he had much exercise—though at a later period the want of it may have been hurtful to him. Sophia, a sister-in-law of Mozart, who is still living, relates: "he was always good-humoured, but very abstracted, and in answering questions seemed always to be thinking of something else. Even in the morning when he washed his hands, he never stood still, but would walk up and down the room, sometimes striking one heel against the other; at dinner he would frequently make the ends of his napkin fast, and draw it backwards and forwards under his nose, seeming lost in meditation, and not in the least aware of what he did." He was fond of animals, and in his amusements delighted with any thing new; at one time of his life with riding, at another with billiards.