“Since Mrs. Billington, never had such high promise been made, or so much expectation excited:  her talents had been exaggerated by report, and her beauty and charms extolled as matchless; she was declared to possess all the qualities of every singer in perfection, and as an actress to be the very personification of grace and power.  Stories of the romantic attachments of foreign princes and English lords were afloat in all directions; she was going to be married to a personage of the loftiest rank—­to a German prince—­to an ambassador; she was pursued by the ardent love of men of fashion.  Among other stories in circulation was one of a duel between two imaginary rival candidates for a ticket of admission to her performance; but the most affecting and trustworthy story was that of an early attachment between the beautiful Henrietta and a young student of good family, which was broken off in consequence of his passion for gambling.

“Mile.  Sontag, before she appeared at the opera, sang at the houses of Prince Esterhazy and the Duke of Devonshire.  An immense crowd assembled in front of the theatre on the evening of her debut at the opera.  The crush was dreadful; and when at length the half-stifled crowd managed to find seats, ‘shoes were held up in all directions to be owned.’  The audience waited in breathless suspense for the rising of the curtain; and when the fair cantatrice appeared, the excited throng could scarcely realize that the simple English-looking girl before them was the celebrated Sontag.  On recovering from their astonishment, they applauded her warmly, and her lightness, brilliancy, volubility, and graceful manner made her at once popular.  Her style was more florid than that of any other singer in Europe, not even excepting Catalani, whom she excelled in fluency, though not in volume; and it was decided that she resembled Fodor more than any other singer—­which was natural, as she had in early life imitated that cantatrice.  Her taste was so cultivated that the redundancy of ornament, especially the obligato passages which the part of Rosina presents, never, in her hands, appeared overcharged; and she sang the cavatina ‘Una voce poco fa’ in a style as new as it was exquisitely tasteful.  ’Two passages, introduced by her in this air, executed in a staccato manner, could not have been surpassed in perfection by the spirited bow of the finest violin-player.’  In the lesson-scene she gave Rode’s variations, and her execution of the second variation in arpeggios was pronounced infinitely superior to Catalani’s.

“At first the cognoscenti were haunted by a fear that Sontag would permit herself to degenerate, like Catalani, into a mere imitator of instrumental performers, and endeavor to astonish instead of pleasing the public by executing such things as Rode’s variations.  But it was soon observed that, while indulging in almost unlimited, luxuriance of embellishment in singing Rossini’s music, she showed herself