ted seven
hundred pounds, and her rival, Mrs. Billington, generously gave her
services. Madame Mara passed the last years of her life at Revel, where
she died, January, 1833, at the age of eighty-five. On the celebration
of her eighty-third birthday she was offered a poetical tribute by no
less a person than Goethe.

Of Madame Mara's contemporary male singers Luigi Marchesi is entitled to
mention, for he had, within three years of his debut, the reputation of
being the best singer in Italy. He visited all Europe, even penetrating
to St. Petersburg, in company with Sarti and Todi. Besides his wonderful
vocal powers, which enabled him to execute the most marvellous
embellishments, he was noted for great beauty of person, and for the
grace and propriety of his gestures.

Crescentini, too, who was considered the last great singer of his
school, sang at all the chief cities of Europe, and was given by
Napoleon the Iron Cross, an honor which aroused many jealousies.
"Nothing could exceed," says Fetis, "the suavity of his tones, the force
of his expression, the perfect taste of his ornaments, or the large
style of his phrasing." For several years after his retirement he was a
professor at the Royal College of Music at Naples.

Mrs. Elizabeth Billington was considered to be the finest singer ever
born in England. Her father was a member of the Italian Opera orchestra
named Weichsel, and her mother, a pupil of John Christian Bach, was a
leading vocalist at Vauxhall, whose voice was noted for a certain
reediness of tone, caused, it is said, by her having practised with the
oboe,--her husband's instrument.

Elizabeth Weichsel was born in 1770, and began to compose pieces for the
pianoforte when eleven years of age. At fourteen, she appeared at a
concert at Oxford. She continued her study of the piano under Thomas
Billington, one of the band of Drury Lane, to whom she was married in
1785, in opposition to the wishes of her parents. They were very poor,
and went to Dublin to seek engagements, and here Mrs. Billington
appeared at a theatre in Smock Alley, singing with the celebrated
Tenduccini. Her early efforts were not crowned with the greatest
success, but she did better at Waterford, and later on, when she
returned to London, she was still more successful.

Her voice was a pure soprano, sweet rather than powerful, of
extraordinary extent and quality in its upper notes, in which it had
somewhat the tone color of a flute or f