But as the poet of the opera, Metastasio is without a rival. The splendour of his diction, the unlaboured melody of his numbers, the richness of his imagination, and the voluptuous strain of his sentiments, elevate him to an enviable and solitary eminence, among the lyrical poets of his own country. The beauty of his sentiments, and the charm of his expression, heightened by the sublime accords of Cimarosa or Pergolesi, cannot have been unfelt by those who have much frequented the operas of Italy, where sometimes the combined power of musick and of poetry, like the fabulous songs of Circe and the Syrens, will

Take the prison'd soul,
And lap it in Elysium.