congregation. Every actor that comes on the stage is a beau. The queens
and heroines are so painted that they appear as ruddy and cherry-cheeked
as milkmaids. The shepherds are all embroidered, and acquit themselves
in a ball better than our English dancing-masters. I have seen a couple
of rivers appear in red stockings; and Alpheus, instead of having
his head covered with sedge and bulrushes, making love in a fair,
full-bottomed periwig, and a plume of feathers; but with a voice so
full of shakes and quavers, that I should have thought the murmur of a
country brook the much more agreeable music. I remember the last opera
I saw in that merry nation was the 'Rape of Proserpine,' where Pluto,
to make the more tempting figure, puts himself in a French equipage, and
brings Ascalaphus along with him as his _valet de chambre_. This is what
we call folly and impertinence, but what the French look upon as gay and
polite."


II.

The French musical drama continued without much chance in the hands of
the Lulli school (for the musician had several skillful imitators and
successors) till the appearance of Jean Philippe Rameau, who inaugurated
a new era. This celebrated man was born in Auvergne in 1683, and was
during his earlier life the organist of the Clermont cathedral church.
Here he pursued the scientific researches in music which entitled him
in the eyes of his admirers to be called the Newton of his art. He had
reached the age of fifty without recognition as a dramatic composer,
when the production of "Hippolyte et Aricie" excited a violent feud
by creating a strong current of opposition to the music of Lulli. He
produced works in rapid succession, and finally overcame all obstacles,
and won for himself the name of being the greatest lyric composer which