with the vicious uses to which she put her magnificent voice. In Paris
the wags had called her _l'instrument Catalani_. In London they said her
style had become a caricature of its former grandeur, so exaggerated and
affected had it grown.

"When she begins one of the interminable roulades up the scale," says
a writer in "Knight's Quarterly Magazine," "she gradually raises her
body, which she had before stooped to almost a level with the ground,
until, having won her way with a quivering lip and chattering chin to
the very topmost note, she tosses back her head and all its nodding
feathers with an air of triumph; then suddenly falls to a note two
octaves and a half lower with incredible aplomb, and smiles like a
victorious Amazon over a conquered enemy." A throng of flatterers joined
in encouraging her in all her defects. "No sooner does Catalani quit
the orchestra," says the same writer, "than she is beset by a host of
foreign sycophants, who load her with exaggerated praise. I was present
at a scene of this kind in the refreshment-room at Bath, and heard
reiterated on all sides, 'Ah! madame, la derniere fois toujours la
meilleure!' Thus is poor Mme. Catalani led to strive to excel herself
every time she sings, until she exposes herself to the ridicule
most probably of those very flatterers; for I have heard that on
the Continent she is mimicked by a man dressed in female attire,
who represents, by extravagant terms and gestures, Mme. Catalani
_surpassing_ herself." Occasionally, however, she showed that her genius
had not forsaken her. Her singing of Luther's Hymn is thus described by
an appreciative listener: "She admits in this grandly simple composition
no ornament whatever but a pure shake at the conclusion. The majesty of
her sustained tones, so rich, so ample as not only to fill but overflow
the cathedral where I heard her, the solemnity of her manner, and the
St. Cecilia-like expression of her raised eyes and rapt countenance,
produced a thrilling effect through the united medium of sight and
hearing. Whoever has heard Catalani sing this, accompanied by Schmidt
on the trumpet, has heard the utmost that music can do. Then in the
succeeding chorus, when the same awful words, 'The trumpet sounds; the
graves restore the dead which they contained before,' are repeated by
the whole choral strength, her voice, piercing through the clang of
instruments and the burst of other voices, is heard as distinctly as if
it we