as sweet, sympathetic, flexible, expressive, sound almost too
commonplace to be applied to Patti's voice at its best, as it was when
she sang the _valse_ Ombra Leggiera from 'Dinora,' and 'Home, Sweet
Home.' Her voice has a natural sensuous charm like a Cremona violin,
which it is a pleasure to listen to, irrespective of what she happens
to be singing. It is a pleasure, too, to hear under what perfect
control she has it; how, without changing the quality of the sound,
she passes from a high to a low note, from piano to forte, gradually
or suddenly, and all without the least sense of effort. Indeed her
notes are as spontaneous and natural as those of a nightingale; and
this, combined with their natural sweetness and purity, constitutes
their great charm." A few months later, when Patti gave one of her
innumerable farewell performances, I was again forced to admit that
she is the greatest of living lyric sopranos, but took the liberty to
express my conviction that "the charm of her voice is almost as purely
sensuous as the beauty of a dewdrop or a diamond reflecting the
prismatic colors of sunlight."

Patti, in a word, is the incarnation of the Italian style. Her voice
is flawless as regards beauty of tone, and spontaneity and agility of
execution. Moreover, she avoids the small vices common to most Italian
singers, such as taking liberties with the time and the sentiment of
the piece for the sake of prolonging a trill or a loud final high
note, and so on. At an early stage in her career she followed the
custom of the time, and lavished such an abundance of uncalled-for
scales and trills and arpeggios and staccatos on her melody, that even
Rossini entered a sarcastic protest; but in her later years she has
conscientiously followed the indications of the composers. At the same
time, she has shown more and more anxiety to win laurels as a dramatic
singer. But here the vocal style which she has exclusively cultivated