FREE THOUGHTS ON SEVERAL EMINENT COMPOSERS.

SOME cry up Haydn, some Mozart,
Just as the whim bites; for my part,
I do not care a farthing candle
For either of them, or for Handel.
Cannot a man live free and easy,
Without admiring Pergolesi?

Or through the world with comfort go
That never heard of Doctor Blow?
So help me heaven, I hardly have;
And yet I eat, and drink, and shave,
Like other people, if you watch it,
And know no more of stave or crotchet,
Than did the primitive Peruvians;

Or those old ante-queer-diluvians

That lived in the unwashed world with Jubal,
Before that dirty blacksmith Tubal

By stroke on anvil, or by summ'at,
Found out, to his great surprise, the gamut.

I care no more for Cimarosa,
Than he did for Salvator Rosa,
Being no painter; and bad luck

Be mine, if I can bear that Gluck!
Old Tycho Brahe, and modern Herschel,
Had something in them; but who's Purcel?

The devil, with his foot so cloven,

For ought I care, may take Beethoven;
And, if the bargain does not suit,

I'll throw him Weber in to boot.
There's not the splitting of a splinter

To choose 'twixt him last named, and Winter.
Of Doctor Pepusch old queen Dido
Knew just as much, God knows, as I do.
I would not go four miles to visit
Sebastian Bach; (or Batch, which is it?)
No more I would for Bononcini.
As for Novello, or Rossini,

I shall not say a word to grieve 'em,
Because they're living; so I leave 'em.

THE END.