She began singing minor parts at the theatre at the early age of eight, and her regular debut in opera took place when she was only fifteen. "She appeared to sing," we are told, "with the volubility of a bird, and to experience the pleasure she imparted." Her great art lay in rendering pleasing whatever she did. The ear was never disturbed by a harsh note. The most romantic stories circulated about the adoration lavished upon her by men of rank and wealth, and it was reported that no singer ever had so many offers of marriage from people of exalted station. But she had met in Berlin a Piedmontese nobleman, Count Rossi, to whom she became affianced, and Mlle. Sontag refused all the flattering overtures made by her admirers. One of her most ardent lovers was De Beriot, the great violinist, who, on his rejection, fell into a deep state of despondency, from which the fascinations of the beautiful Malibran at length roused him. Sontag's union with Rossi was for a long time kept secret on account of the objections of his family, but she retired from the stage and lived nearly twenty years of happy life in the various capitals of Europe, to which her husband, attached to the Sardinian legation, was accredited. At length, in 1848, her fortune was swept away in the political revolution, and she announced her intention of returning to the stage. She was at once offered L17,000 for the season at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, and on her first appearance it was evident that time had but developed the artist. What little her voice had lost was more than compensated for by the deeper passion and feeling which permeated her efforts, and she was rapturously greeted. In 1852 she made a tour of the large cities of the United States, where she quickly established herself as one of the greatest favorites, in spite of the fact that Malibran and Jenny Lind had preceded her, and that the country had hardly recovered from the Lind mania. In New Orleans she entered into an engagement to sing in the City of Mexico; but while her agent was absent in Europe, gathering together an operatic company, she was seized with cholera and died in a few hours. Joseph Staudigl, who was born in 1807, at Wollersdorf, Austria, was one of the most distinguished and accomplished bassos of the first half of this century. He was a man of varied gifts and ardent temperament, frank, open, and amiable. In 1825 he entered upon his novitiate in the Benedictine monastery at Melk, but two years later he went to Vienna to study surgery. Here his funds gave out, and he was glad to sing in the chorus at the Kaernthnerthor Theatre. In due course the opportunity offered for him to take leading parts, and he soon gained a great reputation. He was also a great singer of church music and oratorio, for which branches of music he had an inborn love.