Gabrielli said at this time that she should never dare to appear in England, alleging as her reason that if, in a fit of caprice, which might at any time attack her, she refused to sing, or lost her temper and insulted the audience, they were said to be so ferocious that they would probably murder her. She asserted, however, and, doubtless, with truth, that it was not always caprice which prevented her singing, and that she was often really indisposed and unable to sing, when the public imagined that she absented herself from the theatre from caprice alone. * * * * * Mingotti used to say that the London public would admit that any one might have a cold, a head-ache, or a fever, except a singer. In the present day, our audiences often show the most unjustifiable anger because, while half the people in a concert room are coughing and sneezing, some favourite vocalist, with an exceptionally delicate larynx, is unable to sing an air, of which the execution would be sure to fatigue the voice even in its healthiest condition. * * * * * To Brydone's anecdotes of Gabrielli we may add another. The ambassador of France at the court of Vienna was violently in love with our capricious and ungovernable vocalist. In a fit of jealousy, he attempted to stab her, and Gabrielli was only saved from transfixion by the whalebone of her stays. As it was, she was slightly wounded. The ambassador threw himself at the singer's feet and obtained her forgiveness, on condition of giving up his sword, on which the offended _prima donna_ proposed to engrave the following words:--"_The sword of----, who on such a day in such a year, dared to strike La Gabrielli._" Metastasio, however, succeeded in persuading her to abandon this intention. In 1767 Gabrielli went to Parma, but wearied by the attentions of the Infant, Don Philip ("her accursed hunch back"--_gobbo maladetto_--as she called him), she escaped in secret the following year to St. Petersburgh, where Catherine II. had invited her some time before. When the empress enquired what terms the celebrated singer expected, the sum of five thousand ducats was named. "Five thousand ducats," replied Catherine; "not one of my field marshals receives so much." "Her majesty had better ask her field marshals to sing," said Gabrielli. Catherine gave the five thousand ducats. "Whether the great Souvaroff's jealousy was excited, is not recorded. At this time the composer Galuppi was musical director at the Russian court. He went to St. Petersburgh in 1766, and had just returned when Dr. Burney saw him at Venice. Among the other great composers who visited Russia in Catherine's reign were Cimarosa and Paisiello, the latter of whom produced his _Barbiere di Siviglia_, at St. Petersburgh, in 1780.