Ann Linley, the girl-nightingale, whose voice entranced the ear daily at
the Assembly Rooms concerts as her loveliness feasted the eye. She was,
as all the world knew, only the daughter of Thomas Linley,
singing-master and organiser of the concerts, a man who had plied
chisel and saw at the carpenter's bench before he found the music that
was in him; but, obscure as was her birth, she reigned supreme by virtue
of a loveliness and a gift of song which none of her sex could rival.

It is thus little wonder that Elizabeth Linley's fame had travelled far
beyond the West Country town in which she was cradled. George III. had
summoned her to sing to him in his London palace, and had been so
overcome by her gifts of beauty and melody that, with tears streaming
down his cheeks, he had stroked her hair and caressed her hands, and
declared to the blushing girl that he had never seen any one so
beautiful or heard a voice so divinely sweet.

Charles Dibdin tried to enshrine her in fitting verse, but abandoned the
effort in despair, vowing that she was indeed of that company described
by Milton:

"Who, as they sang, would take the prisoned soul
And lap it in Elysium."

The Bishop of Meath, in his unepiscopal enthusiasm, declared that she
was "the link between an angel and a woman"; while Dr Charles Burney,
supreme musician and father of the more famous Madame d'Arblay, wrote
more soberly of her:

"The tone of her voice and expression were as enchanting
as her countenance and conversation. With a