a teacher and composer of some reputation the young girl received preliminary instruction for two years, and from the hands of this master passed into those of the celebrated Marchesi, who had succeeded Porpora as chief of the teaching maestri.  This virtuoso had himself been a distinguished singer, and his finishing lessons placed Angelica in a position to rank with the most brilliant vocalists of the age.  It was somewhat unfortunate that she did not learn under Marchesi, who taught her when her voice was in the most plastic condition, to control that profuse luxuriance of vocalization which was alike the greatest glory and greatest defect in her art.

While studying, Angelica went to hear a celebrated cantatrice of the day, and wept at the vanishing strains.  “Alas!” she said with sorrowing naivete.  “I shall never be able to sing like that.”  The kind prima donna heard the lamentation and asked her to sing; whereupon she said, “Be reassured, my child; in a few years you will surpass me, and I shall weep at your superiority.”  At the age of sixteen she succeeded in getting an engagement at La Fenice in Venice to sing in Mayer’s opera of “Lodoiska” during the Carnival season.  Carus, the director, accepted her in despair at the very last moment on account of the sudden death of his prima donna.  What were his surprise and delight in finding that the debutante was the loveliest who had come forward for years, and the possessor of an almost unparalleled voice.  Of tall and majestic presence, a dazzling complexion, large beautiful blue eyes, and features of ideal symmetry, she was one to entrance the eye as well as the ear.  Her face was so flexible as to express each shade of feeling from grave to gay with equal facility; and indeed all the personal characteristics of this extraordinary woman were such as Nature could only have bestowed in her most lavish mood.  Her voice was a soprano of the purest quality, embracing a compass of nearly three octaves, from G to F, and so powerful that no band could overwhelm its tones, which thrilled through every fiber of the hearer.  Full, rich, and magnificent beyond any other voice ever heard, “it bore no resemblance,” said one writer, “to any instrument, except we could imagine the tone of musical glasses to be magnified in volume to the same gradation of power.”  She could ascend at will—­though she was ignorant of the rules of art—­from the smallest perceptible sound to the loudest and most magnificent crescendo, exactly as she pleased.  One of her favorite caprices of ornament was to imitate the swell and fall of a bell, making her tones sweep through the air with the most delicious undulation, and, using her voice at pleasure, she would shower her graces in an absolutely wasteful profusion.  Her greatest defect was that, while the ear was bewildered with the beauty and tremendous power of her voice, the feelings were untouched:  she never touched the heart.  She could not, like Mara, thrill, nor,