at Milan, followed her to London, but he was arrested and expelled the country as an alien. Mrs. Billington's return to London caused a great stir in the musical world, and the managers both of Covent Garden (Harris) and Drury Lane (Sheridan) were eager to secure her services. After some negotiation it was arranged that she should appear alternately at both houses, the terms she was to receive being 3,000 guineas for the season, together with a benefit guaranteed to amount to 500l., and 500l. to her brother for leading the orchestra on the nights she appeared. Her reappearance took place at Covent Garden on 3 Oct. 1801, in Arne's ‘Artaxerxes,’ in which she sang the part of Mandane, Incledon singing that of Arbaces. During 1801 she made from 10,000l. to 15,000l., and at one time her fortune is said to have amounted to 65,000l. In 1802 Mrs. Billington appeared in Italian opera at the King's Theatre, on the occasion of the farewell of Banti, when both these great artists sang in Nasolini's ‘Merope.’ A similar performance took place on 3 June of the same year, when she was induced to sing a duet with Mara, at the farewell concert of her great rival. From this time until her retirement in 1811 she continued to sing in Italian opera. Winter wrote his ‘Calypso’ (1803) expressly for her, and in 1806 she distinguished herself by producing, for her benefit, ‘La Clemenza di Tito,’ the first opera by Mozart performed in this country. During 1809–10 she suffered much from ill-health, and at length she retired from the profession, her last appearance being announced at her brother's benefit concert on 3 May 1811. She appeared, however, once more at Whitehall Chapel in 1814, at a concert in aid of the sufferers by the German war. After her retirement she lived in princely style at a villa at Fulham, where she was rejoined in 1817 by M. Felissent, who induced her to return with him to St. Artien in the following year. Here she died on 25 Aug. 1818, owing, it is sometimes said, to the effects of a blow she received from her worthless husband. Her child by her first husband had died in infancy; but it was believed that an adopted child, whom she had placed in a convent at Brussels, was her own daughter.
Contemporary opinions as to the merits of Mrs. Billington as a singer differ to a singular degree. It was always her misfortune to be forced into a position of rivalry with some other great artist, and thus partisanship often guided the judgments of her critics. As to the perfect finish of her singing all are agreed. The Earl of Mount Edgcumbe says that her voice was sweet and flexible, her execution neat and precise, her embellishments in good taste and judicious, but that she lacked feeling, and was no actress. Miss Seward writes of her: ‘She has too much sense to gambol like Mara in the sacred songs;’ but George III, who was no mean judge—by suggesting in a written memorandum (Egerton MS. 2159), that Lord Carmarthen ‘if he can get her to sing pathetick songs, and not to over-grace them, will be doing an essential service to the court’—seems to imply that she had the great fault of the singers of that day, viz. the excessive and indiscriminate use of vocal embellishments. She was all through her life a finished pianist. Salomon used to say that ‘she sang with her fingers,’ and quite late in life she played a duet in public with J. B. Cramer. In person Mrs. Billington was very handsome, though inclined to stoutness. Her portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds as Saint Cecilia, and has been engraved by James Ward, Pastorini, and Cardon. The exhibition of old masters at Burlington House in 1885 contained a small portrait by Reynolds, said to be of Mrs. Billington in her youth, a statement which is probably inaccurate. Two miniatures of her were painted, one by Daniel, and there are engravings of her by T. Burke after De Koster, as Mandane by Heath after Stothard, by Bartolozzi after Cosway, by Dunkarton after Downman, and by Assen. A portrait of Clara in the ‘Duenna,’ painted and engraved by J. R. Smith in 1797, probably represents Mrs. Billington.
[Gent. Mag. lxiv. 671, lxxxviii. 69; Georgian Era (1832), iv. 291; Egerton MSS. 2159, ff. 57, 66; Earl of Mount Edgcumbe's Musical Reminiscences (2nd ed. 1827), § vi.; Busby's Concert Room Anecdotes, i. 151, 212, 217, ii. 4; Eaton's Musical Criticism (1872), 172; Seward's Letters (1811), i. 153; Harmonicon for 1830, 93; Public Characters (1802–3), 394; H. Bromley's Cat. of Engraved Portraits, 431; Memoirs of Mrs. Billington (1792); An Answer to the Memoirs of Mrs. Billington (1792); Grove's Dict. of Music, i. 242a; Cat. of Library of Sacred Harmonic Society; Musical World, viii. 109; Parke's Musical Memoirs (1830); Fétis's Biographie des Musiciens, ii. 195; Thos. Billington's St. George and the Dragon; Quarterly Musical Magazine, i. 175; Registers of Lambeth; Thespian Dictionary (1805).]
BILLINGTON, THOMAS (d. 1832), a native of Exeter, was a well-known harpsichord and singing master towards the close of the eighteenth century. On 6 April 1777 he was elected a member of the Royal Society of Musicians. His brother James (the husband of Mrs. Billington [q. v.]) was elected a member of the same society on 6 Jan. 1782. A third brother, Horace, was an artist, and
