made, and sung extemporaneously to some well-known tune, generally one
which admits of and requires very long lines; that so alternate rhymes
may not be improper, as they give more time to think forward, and gain a
moment for composition. Of this power, many, till they saw it done, did
not believe the existence; and many, after they had seen it done,
persisted in _saying_, perhaps in _thinking_, that it could be done only
in Italian. I cannot however believe that they possess any exclusive
privileges or supernatural gifts; though it will be hard to find one who
thinks better of them than I do: but Spaniards can sing sequedillas
under their mistresses window well enough; and our Welch people can
make the harper sit down in the church-yard after service is over, and
placing themselves round him, command the instrument to go over some old
song-tune: when having listened a while, one of the company forms a
stanza of verses, which run to it in well-adapted measure; and as he
ends, another begins: continuing the tale, or retorting the satire,
according to the style in which the first began it. All this too in a
language less perhaps than any other melodious to the ear, though Howell
found out a resemblance between their prosody and that of the Italian
writer in early days, when they held agnominations, or the inforcement
of consonant words and syllables one upon the other, to be elegant in a
more eminent degree than they do now. For example, in Welch, _Tewgris,
todykris, ty'r derrin, gwillt_, &c. in Italian, _Donne, O danno che selo
affronto affronta: in selva salvo a me_, with a thousand more. The whole
secret of improvisation, however, seems to consist in this; that
extempore verses are never written down, and one may easily conceive
that much may go off well with a good voice in singing, which no one
would read if they were once registered by the pen.

I have already asserted that the Italians are not a laughing nation:
were ridicule to step in among them, many innocent pleasures would soon
be lost; and this among the first. For who would risque the making
impromptu poems at Paris? _pour s'attirer persiflage_ in every _Coterie
comme il faut_[Footnote: To draw upon one's self the ridicule of every
polite assembly.]? Or in London, at the hazard of being _taken off, and
held up for a laughing-stock at every print-seller's window_? A man must
have good courage in England, before he ventures at diverting a little
company by suc