hom I never call to my recollection without emotion: he
was the man of all I ever knew whose heart most resembled my own. We
were connected with two or three Englishmen of great wit and information,
and, like ourselves, passionately fond of music. All these gentlemen had
their wives, female friends, or mistresses: the latter were most of them
women of talents, at whose apartments there were balls and concerts.
There was but little play; a lively turn, talents, and the theatres
rendered this amusement incipid. Play is the resource of none but men
whose time hangs heavy on their hands. I had brought with me from Paris
the prejudice of that city against Italian music; but I had also received
from nature a sensibility and niceness of distinction which prejudice
cannot withstand. I soon contracted that passion for Italian music with
which it inspires all those who are capable of feeling its excellence.
In listening to barcaroles, I found I had not yet known what singing was,
and I soon became so fond of the opera that, tired of babbling, eating,
and playing in the boxes when I wished to listen, I frequently withdrew
from the company to another part of the theater. There, quite alone,
shut up in my box, I abandoned myself, notwithstanding the length of the
representation, to the pleasure of enjoying it at ease unto the
conclusion. One evening at the theatre of Saint Chrysostom, I fell into
a more profound sleep than I should have done in my bed. The loud and
brilliant airs did not disturb my repose. But who can explain the
delicious sensations given me by the soft harmony of the angelic music,
by which I was charmed from sleep; what an awaking! what ravishment!
what ecstasy, when at the same instant I opened my ears and eyes! My
first idea was to believe I was in paradise. The ravishing air, which I
still recollect and shall never forget, began with these words:

Conservami la bella,
Che si m'accende il cor.

I was desirous of having it; I had and kept it for a time; but it was not
the same thing upon paper as in my head. The notes were the same but the
thing was different. This divine composition can never be executed but
in my mind, in the same manner as it was the evening on which it woke me
from sleep.

A kind of music far superior, in my opinion, to that of operas, and which
in all Italy has not its equal, nor perhaps in the whole world, is that
of the 'sc