The first Italian opera ever performed in England was produced on January 5, 1674, under the auspices of Queen Catherine of Braganza, who was devoted to that style of music, although it took a long time for an English audience to relish it. And “it was not easy,” writes Agnes Strickland, “to persuade the public in those days that a combination of incomprehensible sounds, however harmonious they might be, was capable of exciting feelings of admiration and delight like those with which they listened to the national opera of Arthur, when Dryden’s numbers are wedded to Purcell’s melodies.” The King’s admiration for Mrs. Knight, whose voice was considered by Evelyn and others to excel those of the Queen’s Italian vocalists, excited Catherine’s jealousy, especially as her singing was regarded “as a greater attraction than the wonderful violin playing of Signor Nicolao at musical meetings, where, also, the lute of Dr. Wallgrave rivalled the harpsichord of Signor Francesco.” But, it may be added, Mrs. Knight was first introduced at Court to sing Waller’s complimentary verses on her Majesty’s recovery from serious sickness, in the year 1663. Pepys tells us in his Diary,[161] under September 30, 1668, that the Queen had a concert of Italian vocalists on the Thames, under her balcony at Whitehall Palace, when, “it being a most summerlike day, and a fine warm evening, the Italians came in a barge under the leads before the Queen’s drawing-room, and so the Queen and ladies went out, and heard them for more than an hour, and the singing was very good together; but yet there was but one voice that did appear considerable, and that was Signor Joanni.”