as Italy ever sent us a _prima
donna_, considered as a singer only, like Billington? On the contrary, do
we not, in gauging our progressive musical importations, subject them to
immediate comparison with Billington and Braham? And who, except Catalani
and Fodor, Siboni and Donzelli, would bear that comparison? The French,
the Germans, cultivate assiduously native talent, and we import, now a
Fodor, and now a Sontag; we English alone persist in the sapient policy of
making the exclusion of the native artist from the highest point to which
his ambition could be directed, the rule; and his admission, the exception
which the grammarians say (though my grammar-master never could drive it
into my head why) proves the rule.

But I shall be told that few of our native artists can speak the Italian
language, or sing Italian music, and more especially recitative. My answer
is, let them once know that the mere circumstance of their being English
born does not shut the stage-door of the King's Theatre against them, all
will look up to its boards as the goal of their ambition, and the study of
Italian and recitative will form an important part of every singer's
education. Another common objection is, that we cannot acquire the purity
of pronunciation required by the refined audience of the King's Theatre. I
trust it is no heresy to say that I am somewhat sceptical as to the powers
of euphoniacal criticism which that audience possesses. If one in ten,
even of the box company, can really distinguish the true _bocca romana_
from the patois of the Venetian gondolieri or the Neapolitan lazzaroni, it
is, I am persuaded, as much as the truth will justify. In fact it is not
the audience that is so critical: it is the associated band of foreign
parasites who attach themselves to our aristocracy with the tenacity of
leeches, as purveyors _des menus plaisirs_, and whose interests are
vitally concerned in excluding English talent, and negotiating the
concerns of foreign artists, that raise the cry of "pronunciation." It is
these gentry who, in phrase that a Tuscan would spurn at, and in a brogue
from which a Roman, ear would be averted with disgust, assure our
fashionable opera goers that we poor Englishers cannot learn to pronounce
Italian.

But, after all, do we, by employing only _foreigners_--for we are not
particular, so they be foreigners, as to whether they were born and bred
beyond, or on this side the Alps,--do we, by employing only fo