ining.--Her Early Appearances in
Weimar, Berlin, and Leipsic.--She becomes the Idol of the Public.--Her
Charms as a Woman and Romantic Incidents of her Youth.--Becomes
affianced to Count Rossi.--Prejudice against her in Paris, and her
Victory over the Public Hostility.--She becomes the Pet of Aristocratic
_Salons_.--Rivalry with Malibran.--Her _Debut_ in London, where she
is welcomed with Great Enthusiasm.--Returns to Paris.--Anecdotes of her
Career in the French Capital.--She becomes reconciled with Malibran in
London.--Her Secret Marriage with Count Rossi.--She retires from the
Stage as the Wife of an Ambassador.--Return to her Profession after
Eighteen Years of Absence.--The Wonderful Success of her Youth
renewed.--Her American Tour.--Attacked with Cholera in Mexico and dies.

GREAT SINGERS, FROM FAUSTINA BORDONI TO HENRIETTA SONTAG.

FAUSTINA BORDONI.

The Art-Battles of Handel's Time.--The Feud between Cuzzoni
and Faustina.--The Character of the Two Rivals as Women and
Artists.--Faustina's Career.--Her Marriage with Adolph Hasse, and
something about the Composer's Music.--Their Dresden Life.--Cuzzoni's
Latter Years.--Sketch of the Great Singer Farinelli.--The Old Age of
hasse and Faustina.

I.

During the early portion of the eighteenth century the art of the stage
excited the interests and passions of the English public to a degree
never equaled since. Politics and religion hardly surpassed it in the
power of creating cabals and sects and in stirring up animosities. This
was specially marked in music. The great Handel, who had not then found
his true vocation as an oratorio composer, was in the culmination of
his power as manager of the opera, though he was irritated by hostile
factions. The musical quarrels of the time were almost as interesting as
the Gluck-Piccini war in Paris in the latter part of the same century,
and the _literati_ took part in it with a zest and wit not less piquant
and noticeable. Handel, serenely grand in his musical conceptions, was
personally passionate and fretful; and the contest of satire, scandal,
and witticism raged without intermission between him and his rivals,
supported on each hand by princes and nobles, and also by the great
dignitaries of the republic of letters. In this tumult the singers
(always a _genus irritabile_, like the race of poets) who belonged to
the opera companies took an active part.

Not the least noteworthy episode of this conflict was the