. But, if she was extravagant
and luxurious, she was also generous; and, in spite of the cruel
caprices which had marked her life, she always gave tokens of a
naturally kind heart. She gave largely to charity, and provided
liberally for her parents, as also for her brother's education. Of this
brother, who appeared at the Teatro Argentina in Rome as a tenor,
but who sang as wretchedly as his sister did exquisitely, an amusing
anecdote is narrated. The audience began to hoot and hiss, and yells of
"Get out, you raven!" sounded through the house. With great _sang-froid_
the unlucky singer said: "You fancy you are mortifying me by hooting me;
you are grossly deceived; on the contrary, I applaud your judgment, for
I solemnly declare that I never appear on any stage without receiving
the same treatment, and sometimes worse."

Gabrielli's closing years were spent at Bologna, where she won the
esteem and admiration of all by her charities and steadiness of life, a
notable contrast to the license and extravagance of her earlier career.
She died in 1796, at the age of sixty-six.

SOPHIE ARNOULD.

The French Stage as seen by Rousseau.--Intellectual Ferment of the
Period.--Sophie Arnould, the Queen of the most Brilliant of Paris
Salons.--Her Early Life and Connection with Comte de Lauraguais.--Her
Reputation as the Wittiest Woman of the Age.--Art Association with the
Great German Composer, Gluck.--The Rivalries and Dissensions of the
Period.--Sophie's Rivals and Contemporaries, Madame St. Huberty,
the Vestrises Father and Son, Madelaine Guimard.--Opera during the
Revolution.--The Closing Days of Sophie Arnould's Life.--Lord Mount
Edgcumbe's Opinion of her as an Artist.

I.

Rousseau, a man of decidedly musical organization, and who wrote so
brilliantly on the subject of the art he loved (but who cared more for
music than he did for truth and honor, as he showed by stealing the
music of two operas, "Pygmalion" and "Le Devin du Village," and passing
it off for his own), has given us some very racy descriptions of French
opera in the latter part of the eighteenth century in his "Dictionnaire
Musicale," in his "Lettre sur la Musique Francaise," and, above all,
in the "Nouvelle Heloise." In the mouth of Saint Preux, the hero of the
latter novel, he puts some very animated sketches:

"The opera at Paris passes for the most pompous, the most voluptuous,
the most admirable spectacle that human art has ever invented. It is,