ABSTRACT
Excuse us first, for foolishly supposing, Your Countryman could please you in composing; An Op’ra too!—play’d by an English Band, Wrote in a Language which you understandI dare not say, WHO wrote it-I could tell ye, To soften Matters-Signor Shakespearelli: This awkward Drama-(I confess th’ Offence) Is guilty too, of Poetry and Sense: And then the Price we take-you’ll all abuse it, So low, so unlike Op’ras-but excuse it, We’ll mend that Fault, whenever you shall chuse it. Our last Mischance, and worse than all the rest, Which turns the whole Performance to a Jest, OUR Singers all are well, and all will do their best. But why would this rash Fool, this Englishman, Attempt an Op’ra?—’tis the strangest Plan! Struck with the Wonders of his Master’s Art, Whose sacred Dramas shake and melt the Heart, Whose Heaven-born Strains the coldest Breast inspire, Whose Chorus-Thunder sets the Soul on Fire! Inflam’d, astonish’d! at those magic Airs, When Samson groans, and frantic Saul despairs; The Pupil wrote-his Work is now before ye, And waits your Stamp of Infamy, or Glory! Yet, ere his Errors and his Faults are known, He says, those Faults, those Errors, are his own:
If through the Clouds appear some glimm’ring Rays, They’re Sparks he caught from his great Master’s Blaze!
