Hi! I hope you're doing well, and weathering all the tumult that seems to have battered Reddit lately!

Recently, I came across several references to an apparently fictional castrato named “Squalini”, the only names I could think of that seemed remotely similar were Marc'Antonio Pasqualini, whom I doubt would be well known to 18th century Londoners, and Rauzzini who did not achieve fame in England till the 1770s. Personally I suspect Squalini might simply be a play on the words “squal” or “squalling”,discovering items like this supports that argument. From the Reminiscences of Michael Kelly I also found this line:

“...Then there's that Miss Reynolds; why she, Sir, fancies herself a singer, but she is quite a squalini, Sir ! a nuisance, Sir! going about my house the whole of the day, roaring out, 'The Soldier tired of War's alarms,'...”

The first place I see “Signor Squalini” mentioned comes from a Victorian era listing of banned/forbidden books (most bawdy in nature apparently?)

It summarizes a tale in which Lady Lucian, a frustrated young wife takes a castrato for a lover at the advice of a friend, who tells her that “...these creatures are very tractable; it gratifies their pride to be taken notice of by a woman...” she makes him her singing master and takes him into her home, until the day:

“One morning as her ladyship was shut up with her instructor, the count came down softly from his study, and stopt opposite my lady's chamber; whether through any suspicions, or in hopes to hear a musical prelude we shall not presume to determine.

But certain it is, that he had not remained in the post long before he had cause for suspicions enough whatever he brought with him; for after a little bustling and odd thruming on the keys of the harpsichord he heard his lady cry out in an extatic tone of voice,

“Give what thou can'st, and let me dream the rest.”

His lordship was too well read in Pope not to know where that line was, and the occasion of speaking it; he laid his hand immediately upon the lock of the door, and giving it a push open, for the lady had omitted to bolt it, he beheld my lady and her master—not playing the harpsichord but playing upon it; her ladyship couchant; on the instrument, which served her for a sopha, and the master recumbant on the lady, while every now and then he touched the keys of the harpsichord with his feet.”

Lady Lucian and her husband part ways, leaving her with Squalini, who later deserts her for another, upon which she seeks solace in the arms of a second castrato. This tale apparently first appeared in 1762. Two books, City of Sin: London and Its Vices and Sexual Underworlds of the Enlightenment reference it, but I couldn't find much other background. The “Give what thou can'st” line is taken from Alexander Pope's Eloisa to Abelard .

When skimming Patriots and Fribbles: Effeminacy and Politics in the Literature of the Seven Years’ War and its Aftermath, 1756-1774 a thesis by Declan William Kavanagh, I came across more of interest. From a much lengthier poem entitled The Times by a Charles Churchill, published in 1764, we have these lines. The author expounds at length on the qualities of different nations, and when it comes to Italy says:

Italia nurse of every softer art

Who feigning to refine, unmans the heart

Who lays the realms of Sense and Virtue waste

Who mars while she pretends to mend our taste

Italia to complete and crown our shame

Sends us a fiend, and Legion is his name

The farce of greatness without being great

Pride without power titles without estate

Souls without vigour bodies without force

Hate without cause, revenge without remorse

Dark, mean revenge, murder without defence

Jealousy without love, sound without sense

Mirth without humour, without wit grimace

Faith without reason, Gospel without grace

Zeal without knowledge without nature art

Men without manhood, women without heart

Half men who dry and pithless are debarr'd

From man's best joys—no sooner made than marr'd—

Half men, whom many a rich and noble dame

To serve her lust, and yet secure her fame

Keeps on high diet, as we capons feed

Then “Signor Squalini” appears again in this poem by John Wolcot, printed under his pseudonym of Peter Pindar, the earliest example I could find dated to 1791.

LORD B AND THE EUNUCH

A Lord most musically mad

Yet with a taste superlatively bad

Asked a squeal eunuch to his house one day

A poor old semivir whose throat

Had lost its love-resounding note

Which art had given, and time had stolen away

“Signor Squalini.” with a solemn air,

The Lord began grave rising from his chair,

Taking Squalini kindly by the hand;.

“Signor Squalini, much I fear I've got a most unlucky ear,

And that 'tis known to all the music band.”

“Fond of abuse each fiddling coxcomb carps,

And true it is, I don't know flats from sharps:

Indeed Signor Squalini, 'tis no hum;

So ill doth music with my organs suit,

I scarcely know a fiddle from a flute,

The hautboys from the double-drum,

“Now though with lords, a number of this nation,

I go to operas more through fashion

Than for the love of music, I could wish

The world might think I had some little taste,

That those two ears were tolerably chaste,

But, Sir I am as stupid as a fish.

“Get me the credit of a Cognoscente

Gold shan't be wanting to content ye.”—

“Bravissimo my Lor,” replied Squalini,

With acquiescent bow, and smile of suavity;

“De nobleman muss never look de ninny.”—

“True,” cried the noble Lord, with German gravity.

“My Lor, ven men vant money in der purse,

Dey do not vant de vorld to tink dem poor,

Because my Lor dat be von shabby curse;

Dis all same ting wid ignorance, my Lor.”—

“Right,” cried his Lordship in a grumbling tone,

Much like a mastiff jealous of his bone:

“But first I want some technicals Signor:” —

Bowing, the Eunuch answered “Iss my Lor;

I teash your Lordship queekly, queekly, all,

Dere vat de call the sostenuto note,

Dat be ven singer oppen vide da troat,

And den for long time make de squawl—

Mush long, long note, dat do continue while,

A man, my Lor, can valk a mile

“My Lor der likewise be the cromatique

As if de singer was in greef or sick,

And had de colic—dat be ver, ver fine:

De high, oh, dat musician call soprano;

De low voice, basso; de soff note piano—

Bravoura, queek, bold—here Morchesi shine. (read Moreschi at first, must be Marchesi)

“Dis Mara, too, and Billington, do know—

Allegro, quick; Adagio, be de slow;

Pomposo, dat be manner make de roar:

Maestoso, dat be grand and noble ting

Mush like de voice of emperor, or de king!

Or you my Lor,

When in de house you make de grand oration

For save, my Lor, de noble Englis nation.”

Thus having given his lesson, and a bow

With high complacency his Lordship smiled:

Unravelled was his Lordship's puckered brow,

His scowling eye, like Luna's beams so mild

Such is the effect when flatteries sweet cajole

That praise admiring wight ycleped the soul (eclipsed?)

And from the days of Adam 'tis the case

That great's the sympathy twixt soul and face.

“Signor Squalini,” cried the Lord,

“The opera is begun upon my word—

Allons Signor and hear me—mind,

As soon as ever you shall find

A singer's voice above or under pitch.

Just touch my toe, or give my arm a twitch.”

“Iss, iss, my Lord, (the eunuch straight replied)

I sheet close by your Lordship side;

And den accordin to your Lordship wish,

I give your Lordship elbow little twish

Now to the opera music's sounds to hear

The old castrato and the noble peer

Proceeded: —Near the orchestra they sat,

Before the portals of the singers' throats!

The critic couple mousing for bad notes

With all the keenness of a hungry cat.

Now came an out-of-tunish note—

The Eunuch twitched his Lordship's coat;

Full mouthed at once his Lordship out “Psha!”

The orchestra, amazed, turn round

To find from whence arose the critic sound,

When, lo! they heard the Lord, and saw.

The Eunuch kept most slily twitching,

His frowning Lordship all the while,

(Not in the cream of courtly style)

Be dogging this poor singer, that be-bitching,

Uniting too, a host of damning pshas;

And reaped a plenteous harvest of applause:

Grew from that hour a lord of tuneful skill,

And, though the Eunuch's dead, remains so still.

For a bonus if you will, I also found these lines in the first Canto of Lord Byron's Don Juan:

'Did not the Italian Musico Cazzani

Sing at my heart six months at least in vain?

Though Cazzani appears to be a genuine Italian surname, I can't find any reference to a castrato with that name.