ement and Death.

About the year 1790 the convent of Santa Lucia at Gubbio, in the duchy
of Urbino, was the subject of a queer kind of scandal. Complaint was
made to the bishop that one of the novices sang with such extraordinary
brilliancy and beauty of voice that throngs gathered to the chapel from
miles around, and that the religious services were transformed into a
sort of theatrical entertainment" so entranced were all hearers by the
charm of the singing, and so forgetful of the religious purport of these
occasions in the fascination of the music. His Reverence ordered the
lady abbess to abate the scandal; so the young Angelica Catalani was
no longer permitted to sing alone, but only in concert with the other
novices. Her voice at the age of twelve, when she began to sing, already
possessed a volume, compass, and sweetness which made her a phenomenon.
The young girl, who had been destined for conventual life, studied so
hard that she became ill, and her father, a magistrate of Sinigaglia,
was obliged to take her home. Signor Catalani was a man of bigoted
piety, and it was with great difficulty that he could be induced to
forego the plan which he had arranged for Angelica's future. The idea
of her going on the stage was repulsive to him, and only his straitened
circumstances wrung from him a reluctant consent that she should abandon
the thought of the convent and become a singer. From a teacher and
composer of some reputation the young girl received preliminary
instruction for two years, and from the hands of this master passed into
those of the celebrated Marchesi, who had succeeded Porpora as chief of
the teaching _maestri_. This virtuoso had himself been a distinguished
singer, and his finishing lessons placed Angelica in a position to
rank with the most brilliant vocalists of the age. It was somewhat
unfortunate that she did not learn under Marchesi, who taught her when
her voice was in the most plastic condition, to control that profuse
luxuriance of vocalization which was alike the greatest glory and
greatest defect in her art.

While studying, Angelica went to hear a celebrated cantatrice of the
day, and wept at the vanishing strains. "Alas!" she said with sorrowing
_naivete_. "I shall never be able to sing like that." The kind prima
donna heard the lamentation and asked her to sing; whereupon she said,
"Be reassured, my child; in a few years you will surpass me, and I
shall weep at your superiority." At t