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excellent: the author is a young man,
and in appearance and behaviour very
agreeable; he requested me to be the
bearer of a letter to Padre Martini, under
whom he studied some time at Bologna.
It may not be amiss to remark here,
that in conversation with this young Ly-
ric composer, about the poems which
he had to set, he agreed with me entirely
in my assertion, that there were in
France, and elsewhere, men, at present,
who wrote very pretty verses, full of
wit, invention, and passion; admirable
to read, but very ill calculated for song;
and perhaps one may venture to say,
that, among all the ingenious and ele-
gant writers of this age, Metastasio is
the best, and, almost, the only Lyric
Poet *.
A song for music should consist only of
one subject or passion, expressed in as few and
as soft words as possible. Since the refine-
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