According to a widely held view in eighteenth-century Britain, Britons were somehow inherently unmusical, and this supposed shortcoming was, in fact, a virtue. George Colman explicated this view when he wrote in 1762 that "for arts and arms, a Briton is the thing! John Bull was made to roar—but not to sing." However, he was responding to an already changing cultural landscape. The 1760s saw the emergence of English-language opera, and the rise of a new generation of British singers ready a...