xecution was so very peculiar and so perfectly
unequaled, than I felt as if some magic process was being performed
upon me, which took me back again to something--I know not what to
call it--which I had neither heard nor felt for nearly twenty years.
Involuntarily, unconsciously, my eyes filled with tears, and I felt as
much embarrassed as a young lady of fifteen might be who suddenly found
herself in the act of betraying emotions which she was far indeed from
wishing to display." William Gardiner visited Mme. Catalani in 1846. "I
was surprised at the vigor of Mme. Catalani," he says, "and how
little she was altered since I saw her at Derby in 1828. I paid her a
compliment upon her good looks. 'Ah!' said she, 'I am growing old and
ugly.' I would not allow it. 'Why, man,' she said, 'I'm sixty-six!' She
has lost none of that commanding expression which gave her such dignity
on the stage. She is without a wrinkle, and appears to be no more than
forty. Her breadth of chest is still remarkable; it was this which
endowed her with the finest voice that ever sang. Her speaking voice and
dramatic air are still charming, and not in the least impaired."

About the year 1848 Catalani and her family left Italy for fear of
the cholera, which was then raging, and sought refuge in Paris. While
residing there she heard Jenny Lind. One morning, a few days after, the
servant announced a strange visitor, who would not give her name. On
being ushered in, the timid stranger, who showed a plain but pleasant
face, knelt at her feet and said falteringly, "I am Jenny Lind,
madame--I am come to ask your blessing." A few days afterward Catalani
was stricken with the cholera, which she so much dreaded, and died on
June 12th, at the age of sixty-nine.

It is not a marvel that the public was captivated with Catalani. She
had every splendid gift that Nature could lavish--surpassing physical
beauty, a matchless voice, energy of spirit, sweetness of temper, and
warm affections. Her whole private life was marked by the utmost purity
and propriety, and she was the soul of generosity and unselfishness.
The many business troubles in which she was involved were caused by
her husband's rapacity and narrowness of judgment, and not by her own
disposition to take advantage of the necessities of her managers--a
charge her enemies at one time brought against her.

Her unrivaled endowments (for that taken all in all they were unrivaled
is now pretty well acknowle