[ [cg] Which choirs the birds to song—-.—[MS. Alternative reading.]
[ [ch] And Pearls flung down to regal Swine evince.—[MS. Alternative reading.]
[ [ci] The whoredom of high Genius——.—[MS. Alternative reading.]
[ [304] {264}[Alfieri, in his Autobiography ... (1845, Period III. chap. viii. p. 92) notes and deprecates the servile manner in which Metastasio went on his knees before Maria Theresa in the Imperial gardens of Schoenbrunnen.]
[ [cj] And prides itself in prostituted duty.—[MS. Alternative reading.]
[ [305] A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey took leave of Cornelia [daughter of Metellus Scipio, and widow of P. Crassus] on entering the boat in which he was slain. [The verse, or verses, are said to be by Sophocles, and are quoted by Plutarch, in his Life of Pompey, c. 78, Vitæ, 1814, vii. 159. They run thus—
Ὅστις γὰρ ὡς τύραννον ἐμπορεύεται,
Κείνου ἐστὶ δοῦλος, κἂν ἐλεύθερος μῃ.
("Seek'st thou a tyrant's door? then farewell, freedom!
Though free as air before.")
Vide Incert. Fab. Fragm., No. 789, Trag. Grec. Fragm., A. Nauck, 1889, p. 316.]
[ [306] The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer.