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 aught 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 chuse '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 and Rossini,
I shall not say a word about [to grieve] 'em,
Because they're living. So I leave 'em.

Martin Burney is as odd as ever. We had a dispute about the word "heir,"
which I contended was pronounced like "air;" he said that might be in
common parlance; or that we might so use it, speaking of the
"Heir-at-Law," a comedy; but that in the Law Courts it was necessary to
give it a full aspiration, and to say _Hayer_; he thought it might even
vitiate a cause, if a Counsel pronounced it otherwise. In conclusion, he
"would consult Serjeant Wilde;" who gave it against him. Sometimes he
falleth into the water, sometimes into the fire. He came down here, and
insisted on reading Virgil's "Eneid" all through with me (which he did,)
because a Counsel must know Latin. Another time he read out all the
Gospel of St. John, because Biblical quotations are very emphatic in a
Court of Justice. A third time, he would carve a fowl, which he did very
ill-favoredly, because "we did not know how indispensable it was for a
Barrister to do all those sort of things well. Those little things were
of more consequence than we supposed." So he goes on, harassing about
the way to prosperity, and losing it. With a long head, but somewhat a
wrong one--harum-scarum. Why does not his guardian angel look to him? He
deserves one--: may be, he has tired him out.

I am----with this long scrawl, but I thought in your exile, you might
like a letter. Commend me to all the wonders in Derbyshire, and tell the
devil I humbly kiss--my hand to him. Yours ever,

C. LAMB.

["Free Thoughts." The version in Ayrton's album differs a little from
this, the principal difference being in line 13, "primitive" for
"un-Spaniardised." Lamb