- Performer Name:
- Metastasio
- Performance Venue:
- Performance Date:
- Author:
- Shelley, Mary
- Date Written:
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- Italian Lives
- Article Title:
- Metastasio
- Page Numbers:
- 1:211-12
- Additional Info:
-
Italian Lives, ed. Tilar J. Mazzeo, vol. 1 of Mary Shelley's Literary Lives and Other Writings, 4 vols, gen. ed. Nora Crook.
- Publisher:
- Pickering & Chatto
- Place of Publication:
- London
- Date Published:
- 2002
Text:
[211] He [Metastasio] still continued to improvisare verses in company. This attractive art renders the person who exercises it the object of so much interest and admiration, that it is to be wondered that any one who has once practised it, can ever give it up. The act of reciting the poetry that flows immediately to the lips is peculiarly animating: the declaimer warms, as he proceeds, with his own success; while the throng of words and ideas that present themselves, light up the eyes, and give an air of almost supernatural intelligence and fire to the countenance and person. The audience—at first curious, then pleased, and, at last, carried away by enthusiastic delight—feel an admiration, and bestow plaudits, which, perhaps, no other display of human talent is capable of exciting. The youth, the harmonious voice, and agreeable person of Metastasio added to the charm: yet, fortunately, he gave up the exercise of his power before it had unfitted him for more arduous compositions.
[…]
[212] [quoting from a letter of Metastasio's]: It [improvising] was injurious, because my weak and uncertain health suffered. It was perceptible to every one that the agitation attendant on this exercise of the mind, used to inflame my countenance and heat my head, while my hands and extremities became icy cold.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- AE