pose of love, the agony of abused
confidence, the infuriate resentment of jealousy, or the influence
of feminine piety, there is always the best reason for admiration,
accompanied in the more tragic moments with that sentiment of awe which
greatness of conception and vigor of execution could alone suggest."

Mr. Chorley writes, in his "Musical Reminiscences": "Though naturally
enough in some respects inexperienced on her first appearance in
England, Giulia Grisi was not incomplete. And what a soprano voice was
hers! rich, sweet; equal throughout its compass of two octaves (from
C to C), without a break or a note which had to be managed. Her voice
subdued the audience ere 'Dipiacer' was done.... In 1834 she commanded
an exactness of execution not always kept up by her during the
after-years of her reign. Her shake was clear and rapid; her scales were
certain; every interval was taken without hesitation by her. Nor has
any woman ever more thoroughly commanded every gradation of force than
she--in those early days especially; not using the contrast of loud
and soft too violently, but capable of any required violence, of any
advisable delicacy. In the singing of certain slow movements pianissimo,
such as the girl's prayer on the road to execution, in 'La Gazza,' or
as the cantabile in the last scene of 'Anna Bolena' (which we know as
'Home, Sweet Home'), the clear, penetrating beauty of her reduced tones
(different in quality from the whispering semi-ventriloquism which was
one of Mlle. Lind's most favorite effects) was so unique as to reconcile
the ear to a certain shallowness of expression in her rendering of the
words and the situation.

"At that time the beauty of sound was more remarkable (in such passages
as I have just spoken of) than the depth of feeling. When the passion
of the actress was roused--as in 'La Gazza,' during the scene with her
deserter father--with the villainous magistrate, or in the prison with
her lover, or on her trial before sentence was passed--her glorious
notes, produced without difficulty or stint, rang through the house like
a clarion, and were truer in their vehemence to the emotion of the scene
than were those wonderfully subdued sounds, in the penetrating tenuity
of which there might be more or less artifice. From the first, the vigor
always went more closely home to the heart than the tenderness in her
singing; and her acting and her vocal delivery--though the beauty of her
face and voi