a good musician, and never fell into the fault, common with florid singers, of introducing ornaments at variance with the spirit of the air or the harmony of the accomplishments.  In singing the music of Mozart or Weber, she paid the utmost deference to the text, restraining the exuberance of her fancy, and confining herself within the limits set by the composer.  Her success was tested by a most substantial proof of her popularity—­her benefit produced the enormous sum of three thousand pounds.”

Laurent, the manager of the Theatre Italien, succeeded in making a contract by which Sontag was to sing in Paris for fifty thousand francs a year, with a conge of three months.  It was at this period that she commenced seriously to study tragic characters, and, though she at first failed in making a strong impression on her audiences, her assiduous attention to sentiment and passion wrought such fruits as to prove how far study and good taste may create the effect of something like inspiration, even on the part of an artist so cool and placid as the great German cantatrice.  Her efforts were stimulated by the rivalry of Mali-bran, and this contest was the absorbing theme of discussion in the Paris salons and journals.  It reached such a height that the two singers refused to meet each other socially, and on the stage when they sang together their jealousy and dislike showed itself in the most undisguised fashion.  Among the incidents related of this interesting operatic episode, the following are specially worthy of mention:  An Italian connoisseur, who had never heard Sontag, and who firmly believed that no German could sing, was induced to go one night by a friend to a performance in which she appeared.  After listening five minutes he started up hastily in act to go.  “Stay,” urged his friend; “you will be convinced presently.”  “I know it,” replied the Italian, “and therefore I go.”

One evening, at the termination of the performance, the two rivals were called out, and a number of wreaths and bouquets were flung on the stage.  Malibran stooped and picked up one of the coronals, supposing it designed for her, when a stern voice cried out:  “Rendez-la; ce n’est pas pour vous!” “I would not deprive Mlle. Sontag of a single wreath,” said the haughty Spaniard in a loud voice which could be heard everywhere through the listening house.  “I would sooner bestow one on her!”

This quarrel was afterward made up between them when they were engaged together in London the following year, 1828.  This reconciliation was brought about by M. Fetis, who had accompanied them from Paris.  He proposed to them that they should sing for one of the pieces at a concert in which they were both engaged, the duo of Semiramide and Arsace, in Rossini’s opera.  For the first time in London their voices were heard together.  Each outdid herself in the desire to excel, and the exquisite fusion of the two voices, so different in tone and