We first recall to mind the last great artists of that time, whose names are familiar to us because they appeared in public after the beginning of the present century:--_Catalani_, who preserved to extreme old age the melody and enormous power of her voice; _Malibran_, _Sontag_, _Vespermann_, &c.; the men singers, _Rubini_, _Tamburini_, _Lablache_, and others; and, still farther back, _Mara_, whose voice had a compass, with equal fulness of tone, of three octaves, and who possessed such a power of musical utterance that she imitated within the compass of her voice the most difficult passages of the violin and flute with perfect facility. Then comes the artiste _Ajugara Bastardella_, in Parma, who executed with purity and distinctness the most difficult passages from si (b) to si (b³), and roulades with successive trills, with enchanting harmony; and the old Italian singing-masters, who sang and taught with an art which we should scarcely hold possible, were it not for the unanimous testimony of their contemporaries. There were _Porpora_ and his pupil _Perugia_, who sang two full octaves, with successive trills up and down in one breath, and executed with perfect exactness all the tones of the chromatic scale without an accompaniment; and _Farinelli_, who to his latest age preserved his wonderfully beautiful voice. Of him it is related, among other things, that on one occasion he competed with a trumpeter, who accompanied him in an aria. After both had several times dwelt on notes in which each sought to excel the other in power and duration, they prolonged a note with a double trill in thirds, which they continued until both seemed to be exhausted. At last the trumpeter gave up, entirely out of breath, while Farinelli, without taking breath, prolonged the note with renewed volume of sound, trilling and ending, finally, with the most difficult of roulades. _Pistochi_ and _Bernucchi_ rivalled Farinelli. The latter, although he had received from nature a refractory voice of little excellence, nevertheless succeeded in cultivating it so highly that he became one of the most distinguished artists of his day, called by Händel and Graun, “The King of Singers.” It is impossible to mention by name all the many singers, male and female, who won applause and renown in the beginning and in the middle of the last century. Almost every European state was furnished with most excellent operas, and troops of artists, men and women, with voices of the highest cultivation, flocked thither. Even in the streets and inns and other places in Italy, where elsewhere we are accustomed to seek only music of the lowest kind, one could then hear the most artistic vocal music, such as was found in the churches, concert-saloons and theatres of Germany and France.