254- THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ances, I often find myself echoing the words of poor Christopher 

 Sly : " Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady ; would 

 'twere done ! " An old Italian writer, himself both a singer and a 

 teacher, most truly says : " E vaglia 'I vero, dove parla la passione 

 i trilli e i passaggi devon tacere " leaving the soul to be moved 

 solely by the beauty of expression. It was this quality of sympa- 

 thetic expression that made the singing of Tom Moore, who had 

 no " voice " in the technical sense, more moving than that of re- 

 nowned artists. In an altogether different line, Mr. George Gros- 

 smith contrives by the exquisite clearness of his modulation to add 

 considerably to the gayety of nations with a very limited stock of 

 notes. 



One of the most remarkable things relating to song at the pres- 

 ent day is the scarcity of really fine voices. It will not, I suppose, 

 be seriously argued that the human voice is degenerating, and 

 never were the inducements to cultivate it more abundant or more 

 powerful. Yet, if we are to believe many competent authorities, 

 never were first-rate voices so rare as at the present time. The 

 complaint is not altogether new, and is, in part at least, nothing 

 more than the inevitable moan of the laudator temporis acti over 

 the decadence of things in general. Rossini at the zenith of his 

 fame complained that there were so few good voices, and quite at 

 the beginning of the last century we find Tosi speaking of his own 

 period as one of decay. Mancini also (1774) says that vocal art 

 had then fallen very low, a circumstance which he attributes to 

 singers " having forgotten the old systems and the sound practice 

 of the ancient schools." Still, modern writers on singing are 

 agreed that there is a dearth of really beautiful voices at the pres- 

 ent time, and, as this is one of the very few points on which these 

 contentious persons are agreed, there can be little doubt of the 

 truth of the fact to which they bear witness. Good tenors are 

 especially rare, even among Italians, the chosen people of song. 

 There are no tenors now who can be compared with Mario or Ru- 

 bini ; indeed, one gathers from Mr. Sims Reeves's reminiscences, 

 published not long ago, that the world is at present blest with 

 only one really first-rate tenor. Mr. Reeves leaves his readers in 

 no doubt as to the identity of this Triton among contemporaneous 

 minnows of song. We have no basso that can stand beside La- 

 blache. Except Madame Patti, whose glorious voice is now too 

 seldom heard, and Madame Christine Nilsson, who, to the regret 

 of all lovers of song, has quitted the lyric stage, Madame Albani 

 and Madame Sembrich are almost the sole inheritors of the 

 renown of the great prime donne of old. It is not only in com- 

 pass and quality that our latter-day voices are inferior to those of 

 preceding generations, but in endurance. Catalani's magnificent 

 voice remained unimpaired up to extreme old age, and Farinelli's 



