applause followed, and Farinelli was obliged to
wait for some moments before he could go on; he
then sang the first part of the air, with a luxury
of trills and fancies so extraordinary that the
firmness of the German artist was almost shaken.
The instrumentalist, however, replied to the
singer with a talent which balanced the success
of his young and seductive rival; but when
Farinelli had to repeat the second part of the
air, he caused it to undergo so many transformations,
and enriched it with so many marvellous
beauties, that the entire voice of the theatre
proclaimed him the victor in this remarkable
melodious duel, and so excited were his listeners
that on his leaving the house they followed him
with acclamations home.

This success at Rome completely established
Farinelli's vocal reputation. In 1724 he was
heard with equal delight at Vienna; in the
following year at Venice, and in his native city;
and after successively enchanting the Milanese
and the Romans once more, went, in 1727, to
Bologna, where he encountered the great soprano,
Bernachi—a meeting which wrought a most
beneficial effect on Farinelli's artistical career.
Bernachi, whom his contemporaries called "The
King of Singers," was a pupil of Pistochi, the
founder of a celebrated school at Bologna, and
assiduously cultivated the teaching of his master.
Farinelli made his debut at Bologna in an opera,
in which he had to sing a duo with Bernachi,
whose voice was neither brilliant nor of great
compass. Porpora's wonderful pupil, who had
only to show his graceful figure and pleasing
face to prepossess the audience in his favour,
began by a display of all the fiorituri and
ingenious exercises of fancy which had proved so
successful at Rome, enrapturing all who heard
him; but when the tumult subsided which he
had created, Bernachi took up the air, and sang
it with so much taste and absence of artifice,
imprinting on it the stamp of so much
simplicity and sentiment, that his young rival was
moved by it to tears, and joining in the public
applause, confessed himself vanquished. So
completely did he acknowledge his defeat, that
during the whole time he remained in Bologna
he constantly sought the advice of Bernachi.
After this épreuve, Rome, Naples, Parma, and
Venice were severally the scenes of his triumphs,
though he had there to measure himself with
rivals no less formidable than the sopranists
Gizzi, La Cuzzoni, and La Faustina, with whom
he afterwards contended in London. In 1731,
Farinelli again visited Vienna, and was warmly
welcomed by the Emperor Charles the Sixth,
the father of Maria Theresa, who, whatever his
abilities in other respects, was a distinguished
musical connoisseur, and capable of giving very
good professional advice. This prince was himself
no mean performer on the clavecin—the
pianoforte of that day—and one day, when he
was accompanying Farinelii, astonished at his
prodigious powers of ornamentation, he said:
''You are much too prodigal of your great gifts;
it would be far more worthy of your great talent
if you refrained from that excess of embellishment
which disfigures the thought of the master
and only surprises the senses, and confined
yourself to the task of producing emotion by simpler
means." This reproof was not lost upon
Farinelli, but contributed, with the lesson which he
had received from Bernachi, to render him the
pathetic and touching singer so admired in London
and at the court of Spain.

It was in 1734 that Farinelli, already famous
and rich, came to England, to increase his fame
and add to his riches. Two Italian theatres at
that time disputed the favour of the London
public—one of them conducted by the great
composer, Handel, the other by his inveterate
foes, who had enlisted Porpora against him. To
render the struggle more equal, Porpora
procured an engagement for Farinelli, who made
his first appearance in an opera by Hasse, called
Artaxerxes, in which was introduced an air
composed for him by his brother, Richard Broschi.
This air began by an effort of that sustained note
of Farinelli's which had made him triumphant
over the German instrumentalist at Rome, and
if the pit did not actually "rise at him," the
whole house was in a transport of delight
throughout the representation, and Farinelli
became the idol of the town. Summoned to
court, he was accompanied on the clavecin by
one of the royal princesses, and, amongst the
presents heaped upon him, the newspapers of
the day relate that "his Royal Highness the
Prince of Wales was pleased to make a present
of a fine wrought gold snuff-box, richly set with
diamonds and rubies, in which was enclosed a
pair of brilliant diamond knee-buckles, as also
a purse of one hundred guineas, to the famous
Signor Farinelli, who had constantly attended all
his Royal Highness's concerts since he came
from Italy." The lucky singer gained, in the
course of his three years' visit to England, no
less than five thousand pounds—a prodigious
sum a hundred and thirty years ago, but a mere
trifle now.

Paris was Farinelli's next halting-place, where
Louis the Fifteenth gave him his royal portrait
set in diamonds, and five hundred louis to boot;
but highly as he was appreciated in France, a
higher and more brilliant position awaited him
in Spain.

It was upon no invitation to Madrid, but
simply because he wished to see that capital,
that Farinelli went to the country, where he
remained for five-and-twenty years, loaded with
honours by two successive monarchs, and enjoying
the power of a favourite, if not the authority
of a minister. The year 1737 had opened badly
for the court of Spain, to say nothing of the
kingdom. Philip the Fifth, the feeble, bigoted
descendant of the "Grand Monarque," and
transmitter of feebleness and bigotry to all of
his race, the second branch of the Bourbons, had
fallen into a sort of lethargy—as Falstaff calls
it, "a kind of sleeping of the blood"—from
which nothing could rouse him. He passed
whole days in his apartments, in sadness and
silence, entirely neglecting his person, and
utterly indifferent to public affairs. To distract