The Romance of Biography (Vol 1 of 2): or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols.Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
History
The Romance of Biography (Vol 1 of 2): or Memoirs of Women Loved and Celebrated by Poets, from the Days of the Troubadours to the Present Age. 3rd ed. 2 Vols.
Jameson, Mrs. (Anna)
Women in literature
M. Maugars, himself a musician, who saw and heard Leonora at Rome,
praises her talents generally, and adds, that she was no coquette; that
she sang with confidence, but with modesty; that there was nothing in
her manners that could be censured; that the effect she produced on
those who heard her, was owing, not only to the wonderful rapidity and
delicacy of her execution, but to the care with which she gave the exact
sense and proper expression of the words she sang. He tells us, that on
one occasion, she _favoured_ him by singing with her mother and her
sister, each accompanying herself on a different instrument (in those
days pianos were not, and Leonora's favourite instrument was the
Theorbo, on which she excelled). This little concert so enraptured our
musician, that, to use his own words, he forgot his mortality, "et crut
être dejà parmi les anges, jouissant des contentemens des bienheureux."
It is no wonder that the charms and talents which exalted this prosaic
Frenchman almost into a poet, should turn the heads of poets themselves.
The verses addressed to Leonora were collected into a volume, and
published under the title of "Applausi poetici alle glorie della Signora
Leonora Baroni."--"Poetical eulogies to the glory of Signora Leonora
Baroni." A similar homage had been paid to her mother, Adriana, who
reckoned Tasso among her panegyrists. This may seem too high a
distinction for a species of talent, which, however admirable, can leave
behind no durable monument, and therefore can claim no interest with
posterity. Yet is it just, that those whom heaven has enriched with the
gift of melody, and who have cultivated that delicious faculty to its
height, until with angel-skill they can suspend the dominion of pain in
aching hearts,[144]--that such should ravish with delight a whole
generation, and then perish from the earth, they and their memory, with
the pleasure they bestowed, and gratitude be voiceless and tuneless in
their praise? The gift of song is fleeting as that of beauty; but while
the painter fixes on his canvas
The vermeil-tinctur'd lip,
Love-darting eyes, and tresses like the morn,
what shall immortalise the tones which "turned sense to soul?" what but
poetry, which, while it preserves the memory of such excellence, gives
back to the fancy some reflection of the delight we have felt, when the
full tide of a divine voice is poured forth to the sense, like wine from
an enchanted cup, making us thrill "with music's pulse in every artery."
Leonora Baroni had her poets, and her name, linked with that of Milton,
shall never die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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