improvisatrice, which may have met your notice. Now I entertain
considerable doubt of the truth of these pretensions; not that I question
the veracity of those who have visited Italy and make the assertion: they
believe what they relate, but are, I conceive, grossly deceived. There is
something, no doubt, truly inspiring in the air of Italy:


For wheresoe'er they turn their ravish'd eyes,
Gay gilded scenes and shining prospects rise,
Poetic fields encompass them around,
And still they seem to tread on classic ground;
For there the muse so oft her harp has strung,
That not a mountain rears its head unsung:
Renown'd inverse each shady thicket grows,
And ev'ry stream in heav'nly numbers flows.

Notwithstanding this beautiful description, my scepticism will not allow
me to believe in these miraculous genii.

Lord Byron mentions these improvisatri, in his "Beppo," but not in a way
that leads me to suppose, he considered them capable of original poetry.
Mr. Addison, in his account of Italy, says, "I cannot forbear mentioning a
custom at Venice, which they tell me is peculiar to the common people of
this country, of singing stanzas out of Tasso. They are set to a pretty
solemn tune, and when one begins in any part of the poet, it is odds, but
he will be answered by somebody else that overhears him; so that sometimes
you have ten or a dozen in the neighbourhood of one another, taking verse
after verse, and running on with the poem as far as their memories will
carry them."