- Performer Name:
- Performance Venue:
- Performance Date:
- 27 July 1761
- Author:
- Hervey, Christopher
- Date Written:
- 1761
- Language:
- English
- Publication Title:
- Letters from Portugal, Spain, Italy and Germany, in the Years 1759, 1760, and 1761
- Article Title:
- Page Numbers:
- 3:354-6
- Additional Info:
- Publisher:
- Place of Publication:
- London
- Date Published:
- 1785
Text:
I was interrupted by the appearance of a Neapolitan. This personage called himself a poet, and desired us to let him sing some extemporary stanzas in commendation of our honors. We consented, and accordingly, his guitarre being brought and tuned, he began to sing to it my praises. You may imagine the French were humbled, beat, [355] and annihilated in his verses. From hence his hobbling muse turned to my landlord, and talked much about Hippocrates and Galen. He then glanced to the ladies, and made flourishes about lovely eyes, fires, flames and darts. This diversion of extemporary verses is what is very common in Italy, in Tuscany particularly. Indeed, there are some of the people, who make a profession of this art, that are surprising in their readiness at rhyming. However, these Gothic jingles are much more plentiful in the Italian language than in the English. The extemporary spouters assist themselves, I imagine, by a sort of common-place poetry, which they take care to have in their head. For example, if they speak to an Englishman, they have a set of lines ready for that nation; the same if they address themselves to a Frenchman. They have others for physicians, lawyers, officers, and so on: but our Neapolitan was not one of these [356] excellent extemporarians. He made the queerest confusion of every thing imaginable. However, he served to raise a laugh for about half an hour, and that was enough.
Notes:
- Collected by:
- AE