to notice when she was but nine years of age.
In her maturity, her compositions gave her high rank among female
composers, and in 1855 her oratorio _The Nativity_ was produced in
London. She was a member of the Philharmonic Society and also of
the Royal Society of Musicians. Another gifted woman, whose talents
brought her early into notice and who was a member of the Royal
Academy of Music, was Kate Fanny Loder. She had been instructed in
piano-forte by Mrs. Lucy Anderson, teacher to Queen Victoria when she
was princess and afterward to the children of her majesty. Miss Loder
was a king's scholar at the Royal Academy, and when but eighteen years
of age was appointed professor of harmony at her _alma mater_. Eliza
Flower--whose sister, Mrs. Adams, wrote the words of the hymn _Nearer,
my God, to Thee_--was another of the gifted composers of the century,
and her name appears as the author of many hymn tunes.

To give the names of all the women composers of hymn tunes would be
to give a history of hymnology in modern times, for there is no sacred
song collection but embraces the compositions of many women gifted
in music. To give the names of those who have figured in opera would
involve a history which includes a great many more foreign artists
than English; but without seeking to do more than mention a few of
those whose names have figured in popular favor as operatic _prima
donnas_, and omitting particular mention of their individual
capabilities, there are some names which suggest themselves to
the patrons of the opera as worthy of first mention in the list of
England's great singers. Catherine Tofts, Anastasia Robinson, Lavinia
Fenton,--afterward Duchess of Bolton,--achieved celebrity in the opera
during the first thirty years of the century. Lavinia Fenton was the
heroine of _The Beggars' Opera_, which took London by storm. The names
of Catherine Hayes and Louisa Pyne are still treasured by those whose
recollections go back to the forties.

The general ill repute under which the stage rested in the seventeenth
century continued to hang about it throughout the eighteenth. There
was still a great deal of license allowed spectators, and it was not
unusual for them to pass on the stage and behind the scenes. The rude
and boisterous conduct of the patrons of the theatre made it extremely
unpleasant for persons of refinement to attend it. The city streets
had not yet become well protected, and the degree of security which