I cannot help telling you, that eight or ten years ago I was a witness to the power of your comic music.—There was a little troop of buffi that exhibited a burletta in London, not in the Opera House, where the audience is chiefly of the better sort, but on one of the common theatres full of all kinds of people, and (I believe) the fuller from that natural aversion we bear to foreigners; their looks and their noise made it evident they did not come thither to hear; and on similar occasions I have known candles lighted, broken bottles, and penknives flung on the stage, the benches torn up, the scenes hurried into the street and set on fire. The curtain drew up, the music was of Cocchi, with a few airs of Pergolesi interspersed. The singers were (as usual) deplorable, but there was one girl (she called herself the Niccolina) with little voice and less beauty; but with the utmost justness of ear, the strongest expression of countenance, the most speaking eyes, the greatest vivacity and variety of gesture. Her first appearance instantly fixed their attention; the tumult sunk at once, or if any murmur rose, it was hushed by a general cry for silence. Her first air ravished everybody; they forgot their prejudices, they forgot that they did not understand a word of the language; they entered into all the humour of the part; made her repeat all her songs, and continued their transports, their laughter, and applause to the end of the piece. Within these three last years the Paganini and Amici have met with almost the same applause once a week from a politer audience on the opera stage. The truth is, the opera itself, though supported here at a great expense for so many years, has rather maintained itself by the admiration bestowed on a few particular voices, on the borrowed taste of a few men of condition, that have learned in Italy how to admire, than by any genuine love we bear to the best Italian music. << less