Barbara si t' intendo, &c.
Barbarous Woman, yes, I know your Meaning,
which expresses the Resentments of an angry Lover, was translated into that English lamentation:
Frail are a Lovers Hopes, &c.
And it was pleasant enough to see the most refined Persons of the British Nation dying away and languishing to Notes that were filled with a Spirit of Rage and Indignation.
happen'd also very frequently, where the Sense was rightly translated, the necessary Transposition of Words
which
were drawn out of the Phrase of one Tongue into that of another, made the Musick appear very absurd in one Tongue that was very natural in the other. I remember an Italian verse that ran thus Word for Word,
And turned my Rage, into Pity;