But now our nobles too are fops and vain,
Neglect the sense, but love the painted scene.
CREECH.

It is my design in this paper to deliver down to posterity a
faithful account of the Italian opera, and of the gradual progress
which it has made upon the English stage; for there is no question
but our great-grandchildren will be very curious to know the reason
why their forefathers used to sit together like an audience of
foreigners in their own country, and to hear whole plays acted
before them in a tongue which they did not understand.

Arsinoe was the first opera that gave us a taste of Italian music.
The great success this opera met with produced some attempts of
forming pieces upon Italian plans, which should give a more natural
and reasonable entertainment than what can be met with in the
elaborate trifles of that nation. This alarmed the poetasters and
fiddlers of the town, who were used to deal in a more ordinary kind
of ware; and therefore laid down an established rule, which is
received as such to this day, "That nothing is capable of being well
set to music that is not nonsense."

This maxim was no sooner received, but we immediately fell to
translating the Italian operas; and as there was no great danger of
hurting the sense of those extraordinary pieces, our authors would
often make words of their own which were entirely foreign to the
meaning of the passages they pretended to translate; their chief
care being to make the numbers of the English verse answer to those
of the Italian, that both of them might go to the same tune. Thus