Page:Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron (1824).djvu/154

 suppose. More verses are written yearly in Italy, than millions of money are circulated. It is usual for every Italian gentleman to make sonnets to his mistress’s eyebrow before he is married,—or the lady must be very uninspiring indeed.

“But Sgricci! To extemporize a whole tragedy seems a miraculous gift. I heard him improvise a five-act play, on the subject of the ‘Iphigenia in Tauris,’ and never was more interested. He put one of the finest speeches into the mouth of Iphigenia I ever heard. She compared her brother Orestes to the sole remaining pillar on which a temple hung tottering, in the act of ruin. The idea, it is true, is from Euripides, but he made it his own. I have never read his play since I was at. I don’t know how Sgricci’s tragedies may appear in print, but his printed poetry is tame stuff.

“The inspiration of the improviser is quite a separate talent:—a consciousness of his own powers, his own elocution—the wondering and applauding audience,—all conspire to give him confidence; but the deity forsakes him when he coldly sits down to think. Sgricci is not only a fine poet, but a fine actor. Mrs. Siddons,” continued Lord Byron, “was the beau idéal of acting; Miss O’Neil