which his passion for the gaming table led him. It was
said in after years that Mme. Catalani should have been worth not less
than half a million sterling, so immense had been her gains. Mr. Waters,
in a pamphlet published in 1807, says that her receipts from all sources
for that year had been nearly seventeen thousand pounds. She frequently
was paid two hundred pounds for singing "Rule Britannia," a song in
which she became celebrated; and one thousand pounds was the usual
_honorarium_ given for her services at a festival.

Mme. Catalani, in addition to her operatic performances, frequently sang
at the Ancient Concerts and in oratorio; but she lacked the devotional
pathos and tenderness which had given Mara and Mrs. Billington their
power in sacred music. Yet she possessed strong religious sentiments,
and always prayed before entering a theatre. Her somewhat ostentatious
piety provoked the following scandalous anecdote: She was observed
reading a prayer from her missal prior to going before the audience one
night, and some one, taking the book from the attendant, found it to be
a copy of Metastasio. This story is probably apocryphal, however, like
many of the most amusing incidents related of artists and authors.
Certain it is that Catalani never shone in oratorio, or even in the
rendering of dramatic pathos; but in bold and brilliant music the world
has probably never seen her peer. To some the immense volume of her
voice was not pleasant. Queen Charlotte criticised it by wishing for a
little cotton to put in her ears. Some wit, being asked if he would
go to York to hear her, replied he could hear better where he was.
"Whenever I hear such an outrageous display of execution," said Lord
Mount Edgcumbe, in his "Musical Reminiscences," "I never fail to
recollect and cordially join in the opinion of a late noble statesman,
more famous for his wit than for his love of music, who, hearing a
remark on the extreme difficulty of some performance, observed that he
wished it was impossible." It was this same nobleman, Lord North, who
perpetrated the following _mot_: Being asked why he did not subscribe
to the Ancient Concerts, and reminded that his brother, the Bishop of
Winchester, had done so, he said, "Oh, if I was as deaf as the good
Bishop, I would subscribe too."

During the period of her operatic career in England, Catalani
illustrated the works of a wide variety of composers, both serious and
comic; for her dramatic ta