s that of a
modest, unpretending gentlewoman, full of quiet strength and shrewd
pleasantry, with a Scottish flavor, but altogether above being brilliant
or showy, even in conversation with a stranger and an author. She
questioned me closely about my country and about the people, and
appeared to take much interest in our doings and prospects. Her sister
Agnes never opened her mouth, to the best of my recollection and belief,
though she listened with her eyes and ears to the conversation, and
appeared to enjoy it exceedingly; and as for Lady Bentham, though a
clever woman of large experience and great resources, such was her
self-denial and her generous admiration of the "queenly stranger," as I
had called her friend in sport,--remembering how it was applied to the
magnificent Siddons, when she represented Jane de Montfort,--that she
did nothing more and said nothing more than what was calculated to bring
out her friend to advantage. There was nothing said, however, from which
a person unacquainted with the writings of Joanna Baillie would have
inferred her true character,--no flashing lights, no surprises, no
thunder-bursts. The conversation was, at the best, but sociable and
free, as if we were all of the same neighborhood or household; but
knowing her by her great work on the Passions, I was profoundly
impressed, nevertheless, and left her well satisfied with her
revelations of character.

* * * * *

_Catalani._--What a magnificent creature! How majestic and easy and
graceful! And then what a voice! One would swear she had a nest of
nightingales and a trumpet obligato in her throat. No wonder she sets
the great glass chandeliers of the Argyle rooms ringing and rattling
when she charges in a bravura.

That she is, in some passages, a little--not vulgar--but almost vulgar,
with a dash of the contadina, is undeniable; and she certainly has not a
delicate ear, and often sings false; yet, when that tempestuous warbling
in her throat breaks forth, and the flush of her heart's blood hurries
over her face and empurples her neck, why then "bow the high banners,
roll the answering drums," and shut up, if you wouldn't be torn to
pieces by a London mob.

Say what you will, you must acknowledge--you _must_--that you never
heard such a voice before, if there ever was one like it on earth,--so
full and so impassioned, so rich and sympathetic. More educated, more
brilliant organs there may be, like