[…] an Italian piece of many parts and much intricacy—it is only a Master Braham or Madame Catalani who has got throat long enough and flexible enough for it; which stretching out as gracefully as a hen drinketh water, she cackles out the whole piece as sweetly as Orpheus, as dexterously as a fiddler’s elbow, as long-windedly as the pipe of an ass, and as proudly as if she had laid a golden egg.