hitherto believed to belong to instruments—­to the piano-forte and the violin, for instance.  Arpeggios and chromatic scales, passages ascending and descending, she executed in the same manner that the ablest performers on these instruments execute them.  There were the firmness and the neatness that appertain to the piano-forte, while she would go through a scale staccato with the precision of the bow.  Her great art, however, lay in rendering whatever she did pleasing.  The ear was never disturbed by a harsh note.  The velocity of her passages was sometimes uncontrollable, for it has been observed that in a division, say, of four groups of quadruplets, she would execute the first in exact time, the second and third would increase in rapidity so much that in the fourth she was compelled to decrease the speed perceptibly, in order to give the band the means of recovering the time she had gained.”

Mile.  Sontag was of middle height, beautifully formed, and had a face beaming with sensibility, delicacy, and modesty.  Beautiful light-brown hair, large blue eyes, finely molded mouth, and perfect teeth completed an ensemble little short of bewitching.  Her elegant figure and the delicacy of her features were matched by hands and feet of such exquisite proportions that sculptors besought the privilege of modeling them, and poets raved about them in their verses.  Artlessness and naivete were joined with such fine breeding of manner that it seemed as if the blue blood of centuries must have coursed in her veins instead of the blood of obscure actors, whose only honor was to have given to the world one of the paragons of song.  Sontag never aspired to the higher walks of lyric tragedy, as she knew her own limitation, but in light and elegant comedy, the Mosinas and Susannas, she has never been excelled, whether as actress or singer.  It was said of her that she could render with equal skill the works of Rossini, Mozart, Weber, and Spohr, uniting the originality of her own people with the artistic method and facility of the French and Italian schools.  From Leipsic Mile.  Sontag went to Berlin, where the demonstrations of delight which greeted her singing rose to fever-heat as the performances continued.  Expressions of rapture greeted heron the streets; even the rigid etiquette of the Prussian court gave way to receive the low-born singer as a royal guest, an honor which all the aristocratic houses were prompt to emulate.  It was at Berlin that Sontag made the acquaintance of Count Rossi, a Piedmontese nobleman attached to the Sardinian Legation.  An ardent attachment sprang up between them, and they became affianced.