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hibitions! These people are so far from feeling what is fine in the arts, that they never even suspect that there is a modesty belonging to sensibility. This is a little. piece of truth, which our sentimental ladies will doubtless feel obliged to me for having taught them. I will add an anecdote which may serve both as a model in the art of ecstatics, and as an excuse, if any frozen fellow should think proper to be ironical, and indulge in ill-timed pleasantry.

The Artaxerxes of Metastasio was performed in one of the first theatres of Rome, with the music of Bertoni; the inimitable Pacchiarotti*, if I am not mistaken, executed the part of Arbaces. During the third representation, at the famous judg ment-scene, in which the author had placed a short symphony after the words

Eppur sono innocente',

the beauty of the situation, the music, the expression of the singer, had so enraptured

* Pacchiarotti, born near Rome, in 1750, excelled in the pathetic. I believe he is still living in retirement at Padua.

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the musicians, that Pacchiarotti perceived, that, after he had uttered these words, the orchestra did not proceed. Displeased, he turned angrily to the leader" What are you about?" The leader, as if waked from a trance, sobbed out with great simplicity, "We are crying," In fact, not one of the performers had thought of the passage, and all had their eyes filled with tears, fixed on the singer.

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I saw, at Brescia, in 1790, a man, of all Italy, perhaps, the most affected by music. He passed his life in hearing it: when it pleased him, he slipped off his shoes without being aware of it; and if the pathetic was carried to its height, he was accustomed to throw them over his head upon the spectators.

Adieu. I am frightened at the length of my letter; the matter increases under my pen: I thought I should write you three or four letters at most, and I am becoming endless. I profit by the obliging offer of M. de C., who will transmit my letters to you, at Paris, free of postage, beginning with the present.

I am glad of this. If you were to receive by the post these enormous packets from abroad, it might be supposed that we were occupied in things of more importance; and, in order to be happy, when one has a heart, it is necessary to withdraw ones-self from notice.

Vale, et me ama.

LETTER IV.

Baden, June 20, 1808.

In faith, my dear Louis, I seem to be no longer fond of music. I am just come from a concert, which has been given on the opening of the handsome room at Baden. You know that I have given pretty good proof of my patience: I have gone through a regular attendance on the sittings of a deliberative assembly; I have endured, in the midst of the most agreeable society, the friendship with which, for my sins, I was honoured by a stupid man in power, with whom you have some acquaintance; but I must confess, that from my first acquaintance with music, I have never been able to bear the tiresomeness of concertos-they are to me the greatest of punishments. It is surely very silly to exhibit before the public, exercises, the results of which alone ought to be presented to it, and which,

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however necessary for a performer, it is cruel to inflict upon an audience. It appears to me about as wise, as if your son, instead of writing what you could understand, should send you from school a letter filled with great O's and F's, such as children are taught to make when they learn to write.

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Performers on instruments are people who learn how to pronounce well the words of a language, and to give them their proper quantity, but who forget, as they proceed, the meaning of these words. Were it not for this, a flute-player, instead of stringing together unmeaning difficulties, and making ad. libs. a quarter of an hour long, would take for his subject a lively and melodious air, such as

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Quattro baj e sei morelli'

of Cimarosa, would spoil, and vary it with as many difficulties as he had a mind: and, after all, would only half tire you. If ever he returned to plain sense, he would draw tears from us, by playing without alteration some melancholy or tender air, or would

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