Tall, swarthy, brusque in manner, she had a voice and a style that made
her famous. It was she who inaugurated the custom of giving farewell
concerts. Meeting with brilliant success at a performance announced as
her last appearance, "she continued," says Dr. Burney, "to sing more
last and positively last times and never left England at all." There was
a rivalry between the two queens of song, which being a novelty,
furnished gossip and laughter for all London. Hughes, that "agreeable
poet," wrote of it:
_"Music has learned the discords of the State,
And concerts jar with Whig and Tory hate."_
Retiring in 1722 with a fortune of ten thousand pounds, Margarita
married the learned Dr. Pepusch, who was enabled by her means to pursue
with ease his scientific studies. In his library she found Queen
Elizabeth's Virginal Book, and being a skilled harpsichordist, she so
well mastered its intricacies that people thronged to her home to hear
her play.
London was divided by another pair of rival queens of song in 1725-6.
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