XCVIII.

His wife received, the patriarch rebaptized him, (He made the church a present by the way;) He then threw off the garments which disguised him,

And borrow'd the Count's small-clothes for a day: His friends the more for his long absence prized him, Finding he'd wherewithal to make them gay, With dinners, where he oft became the laugh of them, For stories, but I don't believe the half of them.

XCIX.

Whate'er his youth had suffer'd, his old age
With wealth and talking made him some amends;
Though Laura sometimes put him in a rage,

I've heard the Count and he were always friends.
My pen is at the bottom of a page,

Which being finish'd, here the story ends; "Tis to be wish'd it had been sooner done,

But stories somehow lengthen when begun.

NOTES TO BEPPO.

Note 1, page 107, line 24.

Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below.
"Quæ septem dici sex tamen esse solent." Ovid.

Note 2, page 111, line 16.

His name Guiseppe, called more briefly, Beppo. Beppo is the Joe of the Italian Joseph.

Note 3, page 115, line 11.

The Spaniards call the person a "Cortejo."

"Cortejo" is pronounced "Corteho," with an aspirate, according to the Arabesque guttural. It means what there is as yet no precise name for in England, though the practice is as common as in any tramontane country whatever.

Note 4, page 118, line 11.

Raphael, who died in thy embrace, and vies.

For the received accounts of the cause of Raphael's death, see his Lives.

13*

ENGLISH BARDS

AND

SCOTCH REVIEWERS.

A SATIRE.

I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.
Shakspeare.

Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true
There are as mad, abandon'd critics too.

Pope.