transacting in the world." She had a wonderful store of musical reminiscences; and he observes that "she has likewise good remains, for seventy-two, of that beauty for which she was so much celebrated in her youth, but none of her fine voice. I asked her to sing. 'Ah! non posso; ho perduto tutte le mie facolà.' 'Alas! I am no longer able,' said she; 'I have lost all my faculties.'" "I was extremely captivated," adds the doctor, "with the conversation of Signor Hasse. He was easy, communicative, and rational, equally free from pedantry, pride, and prejudice. He spoke ill of no one, but, on the contrary, did justice to the talents of several composers that were occasionally named, even to those of Porpora, who, though his first master, was ever after his greatest rival." He played on the piano for Burney on this occasion, in spite of the gout, which had attacked his fingers; and then his daughters, two agreeable young ladies, sang for the doctor to his great gratification. One was a "sweet soprano," the other a "rich and powerful contralto, fit for any church or theatre in Europe;" both girls "having good shakes," and "such an expression, taste, and steadiness as it is natural to expect in the daughters and scholars of Signor Hasse and Signora Faustina."
Faustina and her husband both died in 1788, she eighty-three, be eighty-four.
