But it is time – looking to the limitations of our space – to turn from the specific to the general, and give some account of the St. Martin’s Street musical evenings. Already at Poland Street and Queen Square these entertainments had been the rule; and at Newton’s house, with the Doctor’s increasing popularity, they attained their greatest importance. Moreover, they found, as they had not before found, their faithful chronicler in Daddy Crisp’s correspondent. The chief performers on ordinary occasions seem to have been Esther Burney and her husband, their pièce de résistance being Müthel’s Duet for two harpsichords. Another famous harpsichord player was the Baroness Deiden, the wife of the Danish Ambassador, whose reputation is said to have been European. But the “peacock’s brains” of the record was certainly the Agujari, and Miss Burney’s enthusiasm overflows. Carestini, Farinelli, Senesino, all Mr. Crisp’s old idols, – ’twas to these only that the Bastardini could be compared. And she seems certainly to have done her best. She arrived for tea before seven, stayed till twelve, sang almost all the time, permitted her hearers to encore nearly every song, and sang moreover in twenty different styles, minuets, cantabiles, church-music, bravuras and even that popular Vauxhall misère, the rondeau, growing at last so excited over an aria parlante from the Didone Abbandonata (“Son Regina, e sono Amante”) that “she acted it throughout with great spirit and feeling.” This was pretty well for the lady whom Macaulay qualifies as the “rapacious” Agujari, apparently because, at this date, she was earning fifty pounds a song – which she thoroughly deserved, since people went to hear her and no one else – at the Oxford Street Pantheon.18 But she had an exceedingly appreciative audience, limited by her own request to the Burney family; she was tired of singing at concerts, book in hand, “comme une petite écolière,” and most of all, she was anxious to give the Historian of Music, who was also all-powerful in matters operatic, a taste of her real quality. It does not appear that she ever repeated her performances at St. Martin’s Street, so that it would be inaccurate to represent her as figuring habitually and gratuitously at the Burney “conversations.”
One of the next things which Fanny recounts to Mr. Crisp is the production, at the Opera House in the Haymarket, of that very Didone of Metastasio from which Agujari had borrowed her aria parlante. But the diva upon this occasion (Saturday, Nov. 11, 1775) was Caterina Gabrielli, who seems to have behaved with all her traditional caprice. The Burney family, who occupied the front row of the first gallery, are terribly divided as to her merits. “She was most impertinently easy,” says Fanny, “visibly took no pains, and never in the least exerted herself.” Elsewhere she writes, “Her voice is feeble, but sweetly toned. She has great powers of execution; but – she is no Agujari!” And thereupon, in the contest and confusion of opinion, the writer turns to a little concert that has just taken place in St. Martin’s Street, “at which assisted a most superb party of company.” It originated in the desire of Dr. King, sometime chaplain to the British factory at St. Petersburg, that the famous Prince Orloff,19 before he left England, should hear Hetty and her husband in Müthel’s duet. Both in her Diary and Letters, Fanny has treated this exceptional entertainment at considerable length; and she subsequently “embroidered” the record in the Memoirs of her father. We shall depend, by preference, upon her account to Mr. Crisp. After introducing the guests as they arrive: – Dr. Ogle, the musical Dean of Winchester; Dr. King, who announces consequentially that the Prince, having dined at Lord Buckingham’s, is coming as soon as he has been to Lady Harrington’s rout; the virtuosa, Lady Edgecumbe (“all condescension, repartee (and yet) good humour”); Mr. Charles Boone, the fine gentleman who broke his sword in the staircase; Mrs. Brudenel; Mr. Anthony Chamier – all of whose conversation turns upon the Gabrielli and her performance of the evening before, – one of the rat, tat, tats with which the diarist diversifies her narrative, announces M. le Baron de Demidoff, thin, long-nosed, with a most triste and foreign countenance. M. de Demidoff travels with the Prince, whose avant-coureur he is. He brings the gratifying intelligence that His Highness is detained at Lady Harrington’s, but may be expected with the least possible delay. Then follow Mr. Harris of Salisbury, Lord Bruce, a younger brother of the Duke of Montague (who has been to St. Martin’s Lane by mistake) – and so forth. At last – like Charlemagne after his Paladins – appears Prince Orloff, accompanied by General Bawr, a Hessian, stern, martial, who has seen service in the Turkish war. And here we most willingly surrender the pen to Miss Burney. “The Prince is another Mr. Bruce, being immensely tall and stout in proportion. He is a handsome and magnificent figure. His dress was very superb. Besides a blue Garter he had a star of diamonds of prodigious brilliancy; he had likewise a shoulder knot of the same precious jewels, and a picture of the Empress hung from his neck, which was set round with diamonds of such magnitude and lustre that, when near the candle, they were too dazzling for the eye. His jewels, Dr. King says, are valued at above £100,000. He was extremely gracious and polite, and appears to be addicted to pleasantry. He speaks very little English but knows French perfectly. He was received by my father in the drawing-room. The library, where the music was, was so crowded, he only shewed himself at the door, where he bowed to Mr. Chamier, who had met with him elsewhere.”
The Müthel duet, which had been postponed for the Prince’s arrival, was then played with prodigious applause, relaxing even the “sorrowful countenance” of the Baron de Demidoff, who clapped his snuff box rapturously, calling out in broken English, “Dis is so pretty as ever I heard in my life!” Lord Bruce, turning to Prince Orloff, told him the performers were man and wife. His Highness seemed surprised, and walking up to Mrs. Burney, made her many compliments; and, expressing his wonder that two such executants should chance to be united, added “Mais, qu’a produit tant d’Harmonie?” To this Hetty, in a flutter, could find no fitter reply than “Rien, Monseigneur, que trois enfants,” – that being the extent of her family, – an artless and unexpected answer at which Monseigneur laughs immoderately, and, being “addicted to pleasantry,” retails freely to those about him, with many “droll comments and observations” on Mrs. Burney’s words. “When the room was a good deal thinned” – Fanny goes on – “Mr. Harris told me he wished some of the ladies would express a desire of seeing the Empress’s picture nearer. ‘I, you know,’ said he, ‘as a man, cannot, but my old eyes can’t see it at a distance.’ ” [The truth was, Mr. Harris wished to be able to compare Orloff’s picture of Catherine II. with his son James’s (Lord Malmesbury’s) portrait of the King of Spain.] “I went up to Dr. King, and made the request to him. He hesitated some time, but afterwards hinted the demand to General Bawr, who boldly made it to the Prince. His Highness laughed, and with great good humour, desired the General to untie the picture from his neck, and present it to us; and he was very facetious upon the occasion, desiring to know if we wanted anything else? and saying that if they pleased, the