Thomas Twining to Charles Jenner, Fordham, February 20, 1769 On one rainy morning I actually sat down to write to you, but was interrupted before I had finish’d the first sentence: & had I not been, I never cou’d have gone on, with such an unsettled dissipated brain, full of Lovattini,! & Garrick, & [Niccolo] Picini, & Reynolds, &c., vibrating, & quivering like a jelly. Let this be some excuse for me. Your letter was long, & sociable, & such as I like; & therefore ought to have been answered sooner. I don’t know whether you know anything of operatic music in London, or no: or whether you have ever heard Lovattini. I heard him the first winter he appeared, & am confirmed now, in the high opinion I had of him then. Of all the singers I ever heard he is the most pleasing to me. I make no scruple to declare, that I derive not a quarter of the pleasure from [Giovanni] Manzuoli or any other castrato I have heard. I am willing to allow something for the circumstance of his doing what he does in a buffoon character, & in a genre from which one has no right to expect any such thing. This produces some illusion possibly. All I say is, that the actual pleasure I have had from hearing Lovattini (whether absolute or relative, what matter?) is greater than that I ever receiv’d from any other singer. The excellencies most remarkable in him are the most perfect intonation I think I ever heard; the most accurate, distinct, articulate execution; no bravura, no tricks, nothing disagreeable (unless on purpose, as a buffoon); all his paces in admirable taste, and in time, never breaking in upon the measure, or making the ear wait for them; a fine, steady, sostenuto tone of voice, beyond expression tender & delicate in the piano, or mezzo-late, & when flung out, of most amazing power & strength; & with all these beauties, you have the comfort to know all the while that you are hearing a Man. << less