AN ITALIAN SINGER'S VIEWS OF ENGLAND.
Saturday.—While Mr. George Cambridge was here Pacchierotti called-very grave, but very sweet. Mr. G. C. asked if he spoke English.
“O, very well,” cried I, “pray try him; he is very amiable, and I fancy you will like him.”
Pacchierotti began with complaining of the variable weather.
“I cannot,” he said, “be well such an inconsistent day.”
We laughed at the word “inconsistent,” and Mr. Cambridge said,—
“It is curious to see what new modes all languages may take in the hands of foreigners. The natives dare not try such experiments; and, therefore, we all talk pretty much alike; but a foreigner is obliged to hazard new expressions, and very often he shews us a force and power in our words, by an unusual adaptation of them, that we were not ourselves aware they would admit.”
And then, to draw Pacchierotti out, he began a dispute, of the different merits of Italy and England; defending his own country merely to make him abuse it; while Pacchierotti most eagerly took up the gauntlet on the part of Italy.
“This is a climate,” said Pacchierotti, “never in the same case for half an hour at a time; it shall be fair, and wet, and dry, and humid, forty times in a morning in the least. I am tired to be so played with, sir, by your climate.”