y of politicians
(who had their views in his keeping it) fear'd, without some such
extraordinary amusement, his Satiety of Empire might tempt him a
second time to resign."[A]

[Footnote A: The monarch alluded to was evidently Victor Amadeus, King
of Sardinia. The tenor Farinelli (whose real name was Carlo Broschi)
was born in the dukedom of Modena in 1705, and died 1782.]

That Cibber knew something of the wrangles which inevitably follow in
the wake of an operatic troupe may be seen from the next paragraph:

"There is, too, in the very species of an Italian singer such an
innate, fantastical pride and caprice, that the government of them
(here at least) is almost impracticable. This distemper, as we were
not sufficiently warn'd or apprized of, threw our musical affairs into
perplexities we knew not easily how to get out of. There is scarce
a sensible auditor in the Kingdom that has not since that time had
occasion to laugh at the several instances of it. But what is still
more ridiculous, these costly canary birds have sometimes infested the
whole body of our dignified lovers of musick with the same childish
animosities."

It was merely an illustration of the melancholy fact that the heavenly
maid of music is too often attended by the handmaiden of discord. But
to continue:

"Ladies have been known," says Colley, "to decline their visits upon
account of their being of a different musical party. Caesar and Pompey
made not a warmer division in the Roman Republick than those heroines,
their country women, the Faustina and Cuzzoni, blew up in our
commonwealth of academical musick by their implacable pretentions to
superiority.[A] And while this greatness of soul is their unalterable
virtue, it will never be practicable to make two capital singers of
the same sex do as they should do in one opera at the same time! No,
tho' England were to double the sums it has already thrown after them.
For even in their own country, where an extraordinary occasion has
called a greater number of their best to sing together, the mischief
they have made has been proportionable; an instance of which, if I am
rightly informed, happen'd at Parma, where upon the celebration of
the marriage of that Duke, a collection was made of the most eminent
voices that expence or interest could purchase, to give as complete an
opera as the whole vocal power of Italy could form.

[Footnote A: Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni Hasse, whose
famous