ch she made during her American tour, in founding art
scholarships and other charities in Sweden, her native land.

Jenny Lind was born in 1820 at Stockholm, and was the daughter of poor
but educated parents, her father being a teacher of languages and her
mother a schoolmistress.

From her cradle she showed the greatest delight in music, and at the age
of three she could sing with accuracy any song that she had heard. Her
musical education began at the age of nine; but, notwithstanding the
brilliant career predicted for her by her friends, her life for many
years was a history of patient hard work and crushing disappointments.

When she was presented by her singing teacher to Count Puecke, the
director of the court theatre at Stockholm, with a view to getting her
admitted to the school of music connected with it, she made no
impression on him, and it was only by great persuasion that he could be
induced to accept her.

In this theatre she appeared in child's parts while scarcely in her
teens, but when she was about thirteen years old her voice suddenly
failed. She continued patiently with her other musical studies, and in
four or five years her voice returned as suddenly as it had left her.

Shortly after this, she sang at a concert the part of Alice, in the
fourth act of "Roberto," and made such a favorable impression that she
was immediately given the part of Agatha, in "Der Freischuetz," and made
her first appearance in opera. She soon became a great favorite in
Stockholm, where she remained for nearly two years.

Filled with ambition, she now went to Paris and sought the celebrated
teacher, Manuel Garcia, whose first advice to her was not to sing a note
for three months. Garcia never expected great things of her, although he
was pleased with her diligence and her musical intelligence. Meyerbeer,
on the contrary, who heard her about a year later, at once recognized in
her voice "one of the finest pearls in the world's chaplet of song," and
through his influence she obtained a hearing in the salon of the Grand
Opera. This did not result in an engagement, and Jenny Lind was so
mortified that years afterwards, when her reputation was established,
and she was offered an engagement in Paris, she declined it without
giving any reason.

She now returned to Stockholm, where she was received with the greatest
enthusiasm; but soon afterwards she appeared at Copenhagen, and then,
through Meyerbeer again, she procured an