For about a year the young singer played provincial engagements, but it was good training for her.  Her powers were becoming matured, and she was learning self-reliance in the bitter school of experience, which more and more assured her of coming triumph.  At last she persuaded Lewis, the manager of Covent Garden, to give her a metropolitan hearing.  Though her voice at this time had not attained the volume and power of after-years, its qualities were exceptional.  Its compass was in the upper notes extraordinary, though in the lower register rather limited.  She was well aware of this defect, and tried to remedy it by substituting one octave for another; a license which passed unnoticed by the undiscriminating multitude, while it was easily excused by cultivated ears, being, as one connoisseur remarked, “like the wild luxuriance of poetical imagery, which, though against the cold rules of the critic, constitutes the true value of poetry.”  She had not the full tones of Banti, but rather resembled those of Allegranti, whom she closely imitated.  Her voice, in its very high tones, was something of the quality of a flute or flageolet, or resembled a commixture of the finest sounds of the flute and violin, if such could be imagined.  It was then “wild and wandering,” but of singular sweetness.  “Its agility,” says Mount Edgcumbe, “was very great, and everything she sang was executed in the neatest manner and with the utmost precision.  Her knowledge of music enabled her to give great variety to her embellishments, which, as her taste was always good, were always judicious.”  In her cadenzas, however, she was obliged to trust to her memory, for she never could improvise an ornament.  Her ear was so delicate that she could instantly detect any instrument out of tune in a large orchestra; and her intonation was perfect.  In manner she was “peculiarly bewitching,” and her attitudes generally were good, with the exception of an ugly habit of pressing her hands against her bosom when executing difficult passages.  Her face and figure were beautiful, and her countenance was full of good humor, though not susceptible of varied expression; indeed, as an actress, she had comparatively little talent, depending chiefly on her voice for producing effect on the stage.

Mrs. Billington’s __debut__ in London was on February 13, 1786, in the presence of royalty and a great throng of nobility and fashion, in the character of Rosetta in “Love in a Village.”  Her success was beyond the most sanguine hopes, and her brilliant style, then an innovation in English singing, bewildered the pit and delighted the musical connoisseurs.  The leader of the orchestra was so much absorbed in one of her beautiful cadenzas that he forgot to give the chord at its close.  So much science, taste, birdlike sweetness, and brilliancy had never before been united in an English singer.  So Mrs. Billington assumed undisputed sovereignty in the realm of song, for one night made her famous.