The versifier thought he had done his duty by his collaborator by giving him verses like this: Triomphe que j'aime! Ta frayeur extreme Va malgre toi-meme Te livrer a moi! But when Scribe abandoned his reed-pipes and essayed the lyre, he gave Meyerbeer this, J'ai voulu les punir ...Tu les as surpasses! And Meyerbeer made it, J'ai voulu les punir ...

Et tu les as surpasses! which was hardly encouraging.
Meyerbeer had other manias as well.

Perhaps the most notable was to give to the voice musical schemes which belong by rights to the instruments.
So in the first act of _Le Prophete,_ after the chorus sings, _Veille sur nous,_ instead of stopping to breathe and prepare for the following phrase, he makes it repeat abruptly, _Sur nous! Sur nous!_ in unison with the orchestral notes which are, to say the least, _a ritornello._ Again, in the great cathedral scene, instead of letting the orchestra bring out through the voices the musical expression of Fides sobs: _Et toi, tu ne me connais pas,_ he puts both the instruments and the voices in the same time and on words which do not harmonize with the music at all.
I need not speak of his immoderate love for the bassoon, an admirable instrument, but one which it is hardly prudent to abuse.
But so far we have spoken only of trifles.

Meyerbeer's music, as a witty woman once remarked to me, is like stage scenery--it should not be scrutinized too closely.

It would be hard to find a better characterization.