with the theatres, had constant opportunities for cultivating the acquaintance of Italian singers, and of keeping up his knowledge of the Italian language; he was evidently influenced in his later compositions by this familiarity. The simplicity of his melodies became disfigured by excessive ornamentation, and was the subject of adverse criticism. The scurrilous poet, Churchill, in 1761, published the "Rosciad," a satire on actors, in which he violently attacked Arne: Let Tommy Arne, with usual pomp of style, Whose chief, whose only merit's to compile, Who, meanly pilfering here and there a bit, Deals music out, as Murphy deals out wit; Publish proposals, laws for taste prescribe, And chaunt the praise of an Italian tribe; Let him reverse Kind Nature's first decrees, And teach e'en Brent a method not to please: But never shall a truly British age Bear a vile race of eunuchs on the stage: The boasted work's called national in vain, If one Italian voice pollute the strain. Where tyrants rule, and slaves with joy obey, Let slavish minstrels pour th' enervate lay; To Britons far more noble pleasures spring In native note, while Beard and Vincent sing. Arne's Italian proclivities induced him to translate Metastasio's drama "Artaserse," and to transform it into an Opera on the accepted Italian mode, without dialogue. This he did successfully; the recitatives, however, are long and dreary, and the poetry is by no means of a high order. For instance, a very favourite air reads: Water parted from the sea, May increase the river's tide; To the bubbling fount may flee Or thro' fertile valleys glide: Yet in search of lost repose, Doom'd, like me, forlorn to roam, Still it murmurs as it flows, Till it reach its native home.