in London, where
they are still residing. She has frequently appeared in concert and
oratorio till within a year or two, and, as the mother of an interesting
family and a woman of the most charming personal character, is warmly
welcomed in the best London society. It must be recorded that the
whole of her American earnings was devoted to founding and endowing art
scholarships and other charities in her native Sweden; while in England,
the country of her adoption, among other charities, she has given
a whole hospital to Liverpool, and a wing of another to London.
The scholarship founded by her friend Felix Mendelssohn has largely
benefited by her help, and it may be truly said that her sympathy has
never been appealed to in vain, by those who have any reasonable claim.
Competent judges have estimated that the total amount given away by
Jenny Lind in charity and to benevolent institutions will reach at least
half a million of dollars.

SOPHIE CRUVELLI.

The Daughter of an Obscure German Pastor.--She studies Music in
Paris.--Failure of her Voice.--Makes her _Debut_ at La Fenice.--She
appears in London during the Lind Excitement.--Description of her
Voice and Person.--A Great Excitement over her Second Appearance
in Italy.--_Debut_ in Paris.--Her Grand Impersonation in
"Fidelio."--Critical Estimates of her Genius.--Sophie Cruvelli's
Eccentricities.--Excitement in Paris over her _Valentine_ in "Les
Huguenots."--Different Performances in London and Paris.--She retires
from the Stage and marries Baron Vigier.--Her Professional Status.--One
of the Most Gifted Women of any Age.

I.

The great cantatrice of whom we shall now give a sketch attained a
European reputation hardly inferior to the greatest, though she retired
from the stage when in the very golden prime of her powers. Like
Catalani, Persiani, and other distinguished singers, she was severely
criticised toward the last of her operatic career for sacrificing good
taste and dramatic truth to the technique of vocalization, but this
is an extravagance so tempting that but few singers have been entirely
exempt from it. Perhaps, in these examples of artistic austerity,
one may find the cause as much in vocal limitations as in deliberate
self-restraint.

Sophie Cruvelli was the daughter of a Protestant clergyman named
Cruwell, and was born at Bielefeld, in Prussia, in the year 1830. She
displayed noticeable aptitude for music at an early age, and a moderate
in