C 3 2 3 ] 



fmsr a favourite air of Nicolini % which he could not at that 

 infiant recollect, as it had been performed not lefs than 40 years 

 before. 



Some time afterwards his Lordmip dreamed that Nicolini fung 

 part of the air to him, and when he awoke he remembered the 

 whole fong, repeating it from hour to hour till he had waited on 

 his royal highnefs, before it had efcaped his memory. 



In another opera of the fame reign Nicolini performed the 

 part of Thefeus. His lordmip told me, that this famous linger 

 had a particular pleafure in beating the minotaur very foundly, and 

 that the man who reprefented the monfrer might fubmit more 

 chearfully to this drubbing, Nicolini always gave him a crown. 

 As the finger chofe however to have his pennyworth out of the 

 minotaur, he generally thramed him fo heartily as to lofe his own 

 breath, which was often inconvenient, as a fong of triumph was 

 to enfue over the proitrate foe. 



I took the liberty to defire his Lordfhip to give me an idea of 

 this air, when he immediately fung it throughout, and imitated 

 at the fame time the catches of breath in Nicolini, from thefe 

 extraordinary exertions. Lord Bathurft was at this time eighty- 

 feven, to the beft of my recolle£r.ion, and therefore affords a ftrong 

 inftance of the mufical memory being very perfect, even in that 

 late ftage of life. It need fcarcely be obferved alfo, that he could 

 not probably have heard this fong for more than three-fcore 

 years r . 



5 The rnufic of operas was not then publifhed from feaibn to feafon, 

 as it hath been of late years. 



c It might indeed have occafionally occurred to him, though he cer- 

 tainly had not heard it performed. 



Tt 2 A third 



