During the early portion of the eighteenth century the art of the stage
excited the interests and passions of the English public to a degree
never equaled since. Politics and religion hardly surpassed it in the
power of creating cabals and sects and in stirring up animosities. This
was specially marked in music. The great Handel, who had not then found
his true vocation as an oratorio composer, was in the culmination of
his power as manager of the opera, though he was irritated by hostile
factions. The musical quarrels of the time were almost as interesting as
the Gluck-Piccini war in Paris in the latter part of the same century,
and the _literati_ took part in it with a zest and wit not less piquant
and noticeable. Handel, serenely grand in his musical conceptions, was
personally passionate and fretful; and the contest of satire, scandal,
and witticism raged without intermission between him and his rivals,
supported on each hand by princes and nobles, and also by the great
dignitaries of the republic of letters. In this tumult the singers
(always a _genus irritabile_, like the race of poets) who belonged to
the opera companies took an active part.

Not the least noteworthy episode of this conflict was the feud between
two foremost sirens of the lyric stage, Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina
Bordoni. When the brilliant Faustina appeared in London, as a fresh
importation of Handel, who was as indefatigable in purveying novelties
as any modern Mapleson or Strakosch, Cuzzoni was the idol of the public,
having succeeded to that honor after Anastasia Robinson retired from
the stage as Countess of Peterborough. Handel some years before had
introduced Cuzzoni to the English stage, and, though kept in constant
turmoil by her insolence and caprice, had taken great pains to display
her fine voice by the composition of airs specially suited to her. It is
recorded that one morning, after she had refused at rehearsal to sing a