his friend Franke, describing her "popularity, her pleasing manners, and her interesting conversation, which she carried on with equal fluency in Italian, German, French, or English.
"She may be styled beautiful," he says, "and in singing may vie with our best virtuosi."
Her voice was excellent and well trained; indeed, she had become so proficient in music that when, at twenty, she made her final choice of a profession, she hesitated long as to whether she should adhere to painting, or adopt music and the operatic stage. Many of her best friends advised the latter course, assuring her that success lay within her easy grasp. She finally resolved to pursue the career in which she had already made so hopeful a beginning, rather than to enter upon an untried path. That the choice was no easy one we may infer from that picture in which she has represented herself as standing between music and painting, yielding to the representations of the latter, but addressing to the other an affectionate and regretful farewell.
During her stay at Venice she made the acquaintance of Lady Wentworth, the wife of the English ambassador. The acquaintance ripened into intimacy, and Angelica was at length induced by her new friend to go with her to England. In London, she soon became as popular as she had been in Italy. Lady Wentworth introduced her into society, and her agreeable gifts rendered her everywhere welcome guest. She made the acquaintance of many distinguished people, several of whom became her warm friends for life. Foremost among these was Sir Joshua Reynolds, in whose note-books frequent references to her appear, sometimes as “Miss Angelica," but oftener under the abbreviated title of "Miss Angel."
Heartily as she entered into the gaities of the capital, Angelica did not sacrifice her work to her pleasure. She
