Or Greathead charms the listening day,
With English or Italian song,
Or when, with trembling wing I try,
Like some poor wounded bird, to fly,
Your fostering smiles you ne'er refuse,
But are the Pallas and the Muse!
The Parsons and Greathead of this all-round panegyric of Merry's were two members of the “Oziosi” clique: Parsons, a bachelor with a tendency to flirt, to “trifle with Italian dames,” as Mrs. Piozzi poetically put it; Greathead, the newly-married husband of a beautiful wife. Both Parsons and Greathead were voluminous contributors to the society's Album, which soon assumed formidable dimensions. The staple of the contents consisted of high-flown compliments in verse. Parsons, for instance, would write to Greathead's wife:—
O blest with taste, with Genius blest,
Sole mistress of thy Bertie's breast,
Who to his love-enraptured arms are given