[It was Plato's couch or lounge which Diogenes stamped upon. "So much for Plato's pride!" "And how much for yours, Diogenes?" "Calco Platonis fastum!" "Ast fastu alio?" (Vide Diogenis Laertii De Vita et Sententiis, lib. vi. ed. 1595, p. 321.)
For "Attic Bee," vide Cic. I. De Div., xxxvi. § 78, "At Platoni cum in cunis parvulo dormienti apes in labellis consedissent, responsum est, singulari illum suavitate orationis fore.">[
[784] {586}[For two translations of this Portuguese song, see Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 71.]
[785] I remember that the mayoress of a provincial town, somewhat surfeited with a similar display from foreign parts, did rather indecorously break through the applauses of an intelligent audience—intelligent, I mean, as to music—for the words, besides being in recondite languages (it was some years before the peace, ere all the world had travelled, and while I was a collegian), were sorely disguised by the performers:—this mayoress, I say, broke out with, "Rot your Italianos! for my part, I loves a simple ballat!" Rossini will go a good way to bring most people to the same opinion some day. Who would imagine that he was to be the successor of Mozart? However, I state this with diffidence, as a liege and loyal admirer of Italian music in general, and of much of Rossini's; but we may say, as the connoisseur did of painting in The Vicar of Wakefield, that "the picture would be better painted if the painter had taken more pains."
[A little while, and Rossini is being lauded at the expense of a degenerate modern rival. Compare Browning's Bishop Blougram's Apology. "Where sits Rossini patient in his stall."—Poetical Works, ed. 1868, v. 276.]
[786] [Compare The Two Foscari, act iii. sc. 1, line 172, Poetical Works, 1901, v. 159, note 1.]
[787] {587}[Of Lady Beaumont, who was "weak enough" to admire Wordsworth, see The Blues, Ecl. II. line 47, sq., Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 582.]
[788] [Christopher Anstey (1724-1802) published his New Bath Guide in 1766.]
[789] [Compare English Bards, etc., lines 309-318, Poetical Works, 1898, i. 321, note 1.]
[790] {588}[For "Gynocracy," vide ante, [p. 473, note 1].]