Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 3.djvu/27

Rh Of his behaviour in the lighter parts of life, it is too late to get much intelligence. One of his answers to a boastful Frenchman has been related, and to an impertinent he made another equally proper. During his embassy, he sat at the opera by a man, who, in his rapture, accompanied with his own voice the principal singer. Prior fell to railing at the performer with all the terms of reproach that he could collect, till the Frenchman, ceasing from his song, began to expostulate with him for his harsh censure of a man who was confessedly the ornament of the stage. "I know all that," says the ambassador, "mais il chante si haut, que je ne'sçaurois vous entendre."

In a gay French company, where every one sung a little song or stanza, of which the burden was, "Bannissons la Melancholie;" when it came his turn to sing, after the performance of a young lady that sat next him, he produced these extemporary lines: Rh