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TOC
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less; and a base that drove me out of
the church.
At a kind of Magdalen Hospital in this
place, the women were singing and play-
ing most furiously; the music was in the
old stile, full of fugues upon hackneyed
subjects. These females do the whole
business, upon such occasions, them-
selves; play the organ, violins, and bases:
the performance indeed was so coarse,
that I had soon enough of it. I heard
no organs in this town that seemed to be
well toned, but then they are much or-
namented, and, like the French opera,
more calculated to please the eye than
the ear. The pipes here are never gilt,
though sometimes the frame and case are,
and have not a bad effect.
The theatre at Brescia is very splendid,
but it is much less than that at Milan,
with respect to length; the height is the
same. The proportion of boxes round
each theatre is as one hundred to thirty-
four: there are five rows in each, so that
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