“My dear Mr. Crisp,
“My father, now, bids me write for him—which I do with joy and pride,
for now, now, thus instigated, thus authorised, let me present
to you the triumphant, the unique Agujari!
“O how we all wished for you when she broke forth in her vocal glory!
The great singers of olden times, whom I have heard you so emphatically
describe, seem to have all their talents revived in this wonderful
creature. I could compare her to nothing I have ever heard, but only
to what you have heard; your Carestini, Farinelli, Senesino, alone are
worthy to be ranked with the Bastardini.
“She came with the Signor Maestro Colla, very early, to tea.
“I cannot deign to mention our party,—but it was small and
good:—though by no means bright enough to be enumerated in the same
page with Agujari.
“She frightened us a little, at first, by complaining of a cold. How
we looked at one another! Mr. Burney was called upon to begin; which
he did with even more than his usual spirit; and then—without waiting
for a petition—which nobody, not even my dear father, had yet gathered
courage to make, Agujari, the Bastardella, arose, voluntarily arose, to
sing!
“We all rose too! we seemed all ear. There was no occasion for
any other part to our persons. Had a fan,—for I won’t again give
you a pin,—fallen, I suppose we should have taken it for at least a
thunder-clap. All was hushed and rapt attention.
“Signor Colla accompanied her. She began with what she called a little
minuet of his composition.
“Her cold was not affected, for her voice, at first, was not quite
clear; but she acquitted herself charmingly. And, little as she called
this minuet, it contained difficulties which I firmly believe no other
singer in the world could have executed.
“But her great talents, and our great astonishment, were reserved for
her second song, which was taken from Metastatio’s opera of Didone, set
by Colla, ‘_Non hai ragione, ingrato!_’
“As this was an _aria parlante_, she first, in a voice softly
melodious, read us the words, that we might comprehend what she had to
express.
“It is nobly set; nobly! ‘Bravo, il Signor Maestro!’ cried my father,
two or three times. She began with a fullness and power of voice that
amazed us beyond all our possible expectations. She then lowered it
to the most expressive softness—in short, my dear Mr. Crisp, she was
sublime! I can use no other word without degrading her.
“This, and a second great song from the same opera, _Son Regina_, and
_Son Amante_, she sang in a style to which my ears have hitherto been
strangers. She unites, to her surprising and incomparable powers of
execution, and luxuriant facility and compass of voice, an expression
still more delicate—and, I had almost said, equally feeling with that
of my darling Millico, who first opened my sensations to the melting
and boundless delights of vocal melody.[6] In fact, in Millico, it
was his own sensibility that excited that of his hearers; it was so
genuine, so touching! It seemed never to want any spur from admiration,
but always to owe its excellence to its own resistless pathos.
“Yet, with all its vast compass, and these stupendous sonorous sounds,
the voice of Agujari has a mellowness, a sweetness, that are quite
vanquishing. One can hardly help falling at her feet while one listens!
Her shake, too, is so plump, so true, so open! and, to display her
various abilities to my father, she sang in twenty styles—if twenty
there may be; for nothing is beyond her reach. In songs of execution,
her divisions were so rapid, and so brilliant, they almost made one
dizzy from breathless admiration: her cantabiles were so fine, so rich,
so moving, that we could hardly keep the tears from our eyes. Then she
gave us some accompanied recitative, with a nobleness of accent, that
made every one of us stand erect out of respect! Then, how fascinately
she condescended to indulge us with a rondeau! though she holds that
simplicity of melody beneath her; and therefore rose from it to chaunt
some church music, of the Pope’s Chapel, in a style so nobly simple,
so grandly unadorned, that it penetrated to the inmost sense. She is
just what she will: she has the highest taste, with an expression the
most pathetic; and she executes difficulties the most wild, the most
varied, the most incredible, with just as much ease and facility as I
can say—my dear Mr. Crisp!
“Now don’t you die to come and hear her? I hope you do. O, she is
indescribable!
“Assure yourself my father joins in all this, though perhaps, if he
had time to write for himself, he might do it more Lady Grace like,
‘soberly.’ I hope she will fill up at least half a volume of his
history. I wish he would call her, The Heroine of Music!
“We could not help regretting that her engagement was at the Pantheon,
as her evidently fine ideas of acting are thrown away at a mere concert.
At this, she made faces of such scorn and derision against the
managers, for not putting her upon the stage, that they altered her
handsome countenance almost to ugliness; and, snatching up a music
book, and opening it, and holding it full broad in her hands, she dropt
a formal courtesy, to take herself off at the Pantheon, and said;
‘_Oui! j’y suis là comme une statue! comme une petite ecolière!_’ And
afterwards she contemptuously added: ‘_Mais, on n’aime e guerre ici que
les rondeaux!—Moi—j’abhorre ces miseres là!_’
One objection, however, and a rather serious one, against her walking
the stage, is that she limps.
Do you know what they assert to be the cause of this lameness? It is
said that, while a mere baby, and at nurse in the country, she was left
rolling on the grass one evening, till she rolled herself round and
round to a pigstie; where a hideous hog welcomed her as a delicious
repast, and mangled one side of the poor infant most cruelly, before
she was missed and rescued. She was recovered with great difficulty;
but obliged to bear the insertion of a plate of silver, to
sustain the parts where the terrible swine had made a chasm; and thence
she has been called ... I forget the Italian name, but that which has
been adopted here is Silver-sides.
“You may imagine that the wags of the day do not let such a
circumstance, belonging to so famous a person, pass unmadrigalled:
Foote, my father tells us, has declared he shall impeach the
custom-house officers, for letting her be smuggled into the kingdom
contrary to law; unless her sides have been entered at the stamp
office. And Lord Sandwich has made a catch, in dialogue and in Italian,
between the infant and the hog, where the former, in a plaintive tone
of soliciting mercy, cries; ‘_Caro mio Porco!_’ The hog answers by
a grunt. Her piteous entreaty is renewed in the softest, tenderest
treble. His sole reply is expressed in one long note of the lowest,
deepest bass. Some of her highest notes are then ludicrously imitated
to vocalize little shrieks; and the hog, in finale, grunts out, ‘_Ah!
che bel mangiar!_’
“Lord Sandwich, who shewed this to my father, had, at least, the grace
to say, that he would not have it printed, lest it should get to her
knowledge, till after her return to Italy.”
The radical and scientific merits of this singular personage, and
astonishing performer, are fully expounded in the History of Music. She
left England with great contempt for the land of Rondeaux; and never
desired to visit it again.