It is almost needless to speak any thing of that noble language, in
which this musical drama was first invented and performed. All, who
are conversant in the Italian, cannot but observe, that it is the
softest, the sweetest, the most harmonious, not only of any modern
tongue, but even beyond any of the learned. It seems indeed to have
been invented for the sake of poetry and music; the vowels are so
abounding in all words, especially in terminations of them, that,
excepting some few monosyllables, the whole language ends in them.
Then the pronunciation is so manly, and so sonorous, that their very
speaking has more of music in it than Dutch poetry and song. It has
withal derived, so much copiousness and eloquence from the Greek and
Latin, in the composition of words, and the formation of them, that
if, after all, we must call it barbarous, it is the most beautiful and
most learned of any barbarism in modern tongues; and we may, at least,
as justly praise it, as Pyrrhus did the Roman discipline and martial
order, that it was of barbarians, (for so the Greeks called all other
nations,) but had nothing in it of barbarity. This language has in a
manner been refined and purified from the Gothic ever since the time
of Dante, which is above four hundred years ago; and the French, who
now cast a longing eye to their country, are not less ambitious to
possess their elegance in poetry and music; in both which they labour
at impossibilities.
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