This very handsome woman [Grassini] was in every thing the direct contrary of her rival [Mrs. Billington]. With a beautiful form, and a grace peculiarly her own, she was an excellent actress, and her style of singing was exclusively the cantabile, which became heavy a la longue, and bordered a little on the monotonous: for her voice, which it was said had been a high soprano, was by some accident reduced to a low and confined contralto. She had entirely lost all its upper tones, and possessed little more than one octave of good natural notes; if she attempted to go higher, she produced only a shriek, quite unnatural, and almost painful to the ear. Her first appearance was in La Vergine del Sole, an opera of Mayer’s, well suited to her peculiar talents; but her success was not very decisive as a singer […]