I consider that I was quite justified in using even this naughty child’s threat to prevent Miss Tree from doing what might very well have ended in some dangerous and ludicrous accident; nor did I feel at all guilty toward her of the species of malice prepense which Malibran exhibited toward Sontag, when they sang in the opera of “Romeo and Juliet,” on the first occasion of their appearing together during their brilliant public career in England.  Malibran’s mischievousness partook of the force and versatility of her extraordinary genius, and having tormented poor Mademoiselle Sontag with every inconceivable freak and caprice during the whole rehearsal of the opera, at length, when requested by her to say in what part of the stage she intended to fall in the last scene, she, Malibran, replied that she “really didn’t know,” that she “really couldn’t tell;” sometimes she “died in one place, sometimes in another, just as it happened, or the humor took her at the moment.”  As Sontag was bound to expire in loving proximity to her, and was, I take it, much less liable to spontaneous inspiration than her fiery rival, this was by no means satisfactory.  She had nothing like the original genius of the other woman, but was nevertheless a more perfect artist.  Wanting weight and power and passion for such parts as Norma, Medea, Semiramide, etc., she was perfect in the tenderer and more pathetic parts of Amina, Lucia di Lammermoor, Linda di Chamouni; exquisite in the Rosina and Carolina of the “Barbiere” and “Matrimonio Segreto;” and, in my opinion, quite unrivaled in her Countess, in the “Nozze,” and, indeed, in all rendering of Mozart’s music, to whose peculiar and pre-eminent genius hers seemed to me in some degree allied, and of whose works she was the only interpreter I ever heard, gifted alike with the profound German understanding of music and the enchanting Italian power of rendering it.  Her mode of uttering sound, of putting forth her voice (the test which all but Italians, or most carefully Italian-trained singers, fail in), was as purely unteutonic as possible.  She was one of the most perfect singers I ever heard, and suggests to my memory the quaint praise of the gypsy vocal performance in the ballad of “Johnny Faa”—­

    “They sang so sweet,
     So very complete,”

She was the first Rosina I ever heard who introduced into the scene of the music-lesson “Rhodes Air,” with the famous violin variations, which she performed by way of a vocalise, to the utter amazement of her noble music-master, I should think, as well as her audience.  Mademoiselle Nilsson is the only prima donna since her day who has at all reminded me of Sontag, who was lovely to look at, delightful to listen to, good, amiable, and charming, and, compared with Malibran, like the evening star to a comet.