T[)u]rn [=o]n | [)o]ld P[=a]-| [)a]-[=a] || [)a]-[)a]-[)a]-arr | &c.,
would not have been more intelligible to the audience than--"Turn on old Ti-i-i-i-i-i-ime, &c., and it would have been a thousand times easier to sing. Nor in spite of the little importance I attach to the phraseology of the libretto when listening to "music in a dramatic form," would I, if I were a composer, accept such a line as--
"When the proud land of Poland was ploughed by the hoof,"
with a suspension of sense after the word hoof. No; the librettist might take his hoof elsewhere. It should not appear in _my_ Opera; at least, not in lieu of a plough. Mr. Balfe should tell such poets to keep such ploughs for themselves.
The singer ought certainly to understand what he is singing, and still more certainly should the composer understand what he is composing; but the sight of Latin reminds me that both have sometimes failed to do so, and from no one's fault but their own. Jomelli used to tell a story of an Italian chapel-master, who gave to one of his solo singers the phrase _Genitum non factum_, to which the chorus had to reply _Factum non genitum_. This transposition seemed ingenious and picturesque to the composer, and suited a contrast of rhythm which he had taken great pains to produce. It was probably due only to the bad enunciation of the choristers that he was not burned alive.
Porpora, too, narrowly escaped the terrors of the inquisition; and but for his avowed and clearly-proved ignorance of Latin would have made a bad end of it, for a similar, though not quite so ludicrous a blunder as the one perpetrated by Jomelli's friend. He had been accustomed to add _non_ and _si_ to the verses of his libretto when the music required it, and in setting the creed found it convenient to introduce a _non_. This novel version of the Belief commenced--_Credo, non credo, non credo in Deum_, and it was well for Porpora that he was able to convince the inquisitors of his inability to understand it.
Another chapel-master of more recent times is said, in composing a mass, to have given a delightfully pastoral character to his "Agnus Dei." To him "a little learning" had indeed proved "a dangerous thing." He had, somehow, ascertained that "agnus" meant "lamb," and had forthwith gone to work with pipe and cornemuse to give appropriate "picturesqueness" to his accompaniments.