was
received with tumultuous applause. Braham, justly indignant, avenged
himself in an ingenious manner, but his wrath descended on an innocent
head. Mrs. Billington's embellishments were always elaborately studied,
and, when once fixed on, seldom changed. The angry tenor, knowing this,
caught her roulades, and on the first opportunity, his air coming first,
he coolly appropriated all her fioriture. Poor Mrs. Billington listened
in dismay at the wings. She could not improvise ornaments and graces;
and, when she came on, the unusual meagerness of her style astonished
the audience. She refused, in the next opera, to sing a duet with
Braham; but, as she was good-natured, she forgave him, and they always
remained excellent friends.

With that perverse devotion which characterizes the love of so many
women, Mrs. Billington clung to her brutal husband in spite of his
cruelty and callousness, and she did not separate from him till she
feared for her life. Many times he threatened to kill her, and extorted
from her by fear all the valuable jewels in her possession, as well
as the larger share of the money received from professional exertion.
Despairing at last of any change, she fled with great secrecy to
England, where she arrived in 1801, after an absence of seven years,
during which time her name had become one of the most popular in Europe.
There was instantly a battle between Harris and Sheridan, the rival
managers, as to which should secure this peerless attraction. She
finally signed a contract with her old friend Harris, for three thousand
guineas the season from October to April, and the guarantee of a free
benefit of five hundred guineas. It was likewise arranged that she
should sing for Sheridan at similar terms on alternate nights, as there
was a bitter dispute between the managers over the priority of the offer
accepted by the prima donna. Her reappearance before an English audience
was made in Dr. Arne's "Artaxerxes," which the critics of the day
praised as possessing "the beautiful melody of Hasse, the mellifluous
richness of Pergolese, the easy flow of Piccini, and the finished
cantabile of Sacchini, with his own true and native simplicity." It is
not only the criticism of to-day which has concealed the real form and
quality of works of merely temporary interest under flowery phrases,
that mean nothing.

It was speedily observed how greatly Mrs. Billington's style had
improved in her absence. Lord Mount Edgcum