theatre, near the Haymarket, a few days afterward. Faustina, as the Queen of Bologna, and Cuzzoni, as Princess of Modena, exchange high words, seize each other by the hair, and then run off, Cuzzoni pursuing Faustina; while Handel, who has a small part consisting of three lines, advises that the antagonists be "left to fight it out, inasmuch as the only way to calm their fury is to let them satisfy it."
These conflicts proved so injurious to the interests of the Opera, that the directors resolved to end them by a stratagem. Cuzzoni had solemnly sworn never to accept one guinea less salary than Faustina; thus the directors offered Faustina, as the more attractive and more manageable prima donna, one guinea more for the season; and Cuzzoni found herself outwitted. The Count di Kinsky, Austrian embassador, advised her to go to Vienna, and she quitted England for that capital, breathing vengeance on Faustina. The following lines were written by Ambrose Phillips on her departure:
"Little siren of the stage,
Charmer of an idle age,
Empty warbler, breathing lyre,
Wanton gale of fond desire;
Bane of every manly art,
Sweet enfeebler of the heart;
Oh, too pleasing is thy strain,
Hence to southern climes again!
Tuneful mischief, vocal spell,
To this island bid farewell;
Leave us as we ought to be,
Leave the Britons rough and free."
Cuzzoni, while in London, married Pietro Giuseppe Sandoni, of Bologna, a harpischord maker, and a composer. He had settled in England some years before, and made a little reputation, being chiefly remarkable for his skill in improvisation. The Countess of Pembroke was his patroness. At first Cuzzoni had brilliant success at the court of Vienna; but soon her ridiculous pretensions and exaggerated demands (for she wanted to insist on 24,000 florins as her salary) entirely disgusted her patrons. She then left for Italy, saying that she could make as much as she pleased in her own country. She afterward made a tour in Holland, where she lived so extravagantly that she was at last imprisoned for debt.
Seven years after her flight from England she was singing
