io_; and La-blache,
_Oroveso_; the last performance consisted of the first act of "Norma,"
and the three first acts of "Gli Ugonotti," in which Mario sustained the
principal tenor part. "Rarely, in her best days," said one critic, "had
Grisi been heard with greater effect, and never were her talents as
an actress more conspicuously displayed." At the conclusion of the
performance the departing singer received an ovation. Bouquets were
flung in profusion, vociferous applause rang through the theatre, and
when she reappeared the whole house rose. The emotion which was evinced
by her admirers was evidently shared by herself.

The American engagement of Grisi and Mario under Mr. Hackett was very
successful, the first appearance occurring at Castle Garden, August 18,
1854. The seventy performances given throughout the leading cities are
still a delightful reminiscence among old amateurs, in spite of the
great singers who have since visited this country and the more stable
footing of Italian opera in later times. Mr. Hackett paid the two
artists eighty-five thousand dollars for a six months' tour, and
declared, at a public banquet he gave them at the close of the season,
that his own profits had been sixty thousand dollars. Mme. Grisi had
intended to retire permanently when she was still in the full strength
of her great powers, but she was persuaded to reappear before the London
public on her return from New York. It became evident that her voice was
beginning to fail rapidly, and that she supplied her vocal shortcomings
by dramatic energy. She continued to sing in opera in various parts of
Europe, but the public applause was evidently rather a struggle on the
part of her audiences to pay tribute to a great name than a spontaneous
expression of pleasure, and at Madrid she was even hissed in the
presence of the royal court, which gave a special significance to the
occasion. Mr. Gye, of the Royal Italian Opera in London, in 1861 made
a contract with her not to appear on the stage again for five years,
evidently assuming that five years were as good as fifty. But it was
hard for the great singer, who had been the idol of the public for more
than a quarter of a century, to quit the scene of her splendid triumphs.
So in 1866 she again essayed to tread the stage as a lyric queen, in the
_role_ of _Lucrezia_, but the result was a failure. It is not pleasant
to record these spasmodic struggles of a failing artist, tenacious of
that