The 18th century produced a multitude of great singers. Their voices have gone with them; but we know from the music they sang, from the embellishments and cadences which have been noted down, and which are as good evidence now as when they were first executed, that those _virtuosi_ had brought the vocal art to a perfection of which, in these later days, we meet with only the rarest examples. Is music to be written for the sake of singers, or are singers to learn to sing for the sake of music? Of the two propositions, I decidedly prefer the latter; but it must, at the same time, be remarked, that unless the executive qualities of the singer be studied to a considerable extent, the singer will soon cease to pay much attention to his execution. Continue to give him singable music, however difficult, and he will continue to learn to sing, counting the difficulties to be overcome only as so many opportunities for new triumphs; but if the music given to him is such as can, perhaps even _must_, be shouted, it is to be expected that he will soon cease to study the intricacies and delicacies of his art; and in time, if music truly vocal be put before him, he will be unable to sing. * * * * * The great singers of the 17th century, to judge from the cantilenas of Caccini's, Peri's, and Monteverde's operas, must have cultivated expression rather than ornamentation; though what Mancini tells us about the singing of Balthazar Ferri, and the manner in which it was received, proves that the florid, highly-adorned style was also in vogue. These early Italian _virtuosi_ (a name which they adopted at the beginning of the 17th century to distinguish themselves from mere actors) not only possessed great acquirements as singers, but were also excellent musicians; and many of them displayed great ability in matters quite unconnected with their profession. Stradella, the only vocalist of whom it is recorded that his singing saved his life, composed an opera, _La Forza dell Amor paterno_, of which the manifold beauties caused him to be proclaimed "beyond comparison the first Apollo of music:" the following inscription being stamped by authority on the published score--"_Bastando il dirti, che il concerto di si perfetta melodia sia valore d'un Alessandro, civè del Signor Stradella, riconoscinto senza contrasto per il primo Apollo della musica._" Atto, an Italian tenor, who came to Paris with Leonora Baroni, and who had apartments given him in Cardinal Mazarin's palace, was afterwards entrusted by that minister with a political mission to the court of Bavaria, which, however, it must be remembered, was just then presided over, not by an elector, but by an electoress. Farinelli became the confidential adviser, if not the actual minister (as has been often stated, but without foundation) of the king of Spain. In the present day, the only _virtuoso_ I know of (the name has now a more general signification) who has been entrusted