own opera airs.

Lulli was not only a composer, but created his own orchestra, trained
his artists in acting and singing, and was machinist as well as
ballet-master and music-director. He was intimate with Corneille,
Moliere, La Fontaine, and Boileau; and these great men were proud to
contribute the texts to which he set his music. He introduced female
dancers into the ballet, disguised men having hitherto served in this
capacity, and in many essential ways was the father of early French
opera, though its foundation had been laid by Cardinal Mazarin. He
had to fight against opposition and cabals, but his energy, tact, and
persistence made him the victor, and won the friendship of the leading
men of his time. Such of his music as still exists is of a pleasing and
melodious character, full of vivacity and lire, and at times indicates
a more deep and serious power than that of merely creating catching
and tuneful airs. He was the inventor of the operatic overture, and
introduced several new instruments into the orchestra. Apart from his
splendid administrative faculty, he is entitled to rank as an original
and gifted, if not a great, composer.

A lively sketch of the French opera of this period is given by Addison
in No. 29 of the "Spectator." "The music of the French," he says, "is
indeed very properly adapted to their pronunciation and accent, as their
whole opera wonderfully favors the genius of such a gay, airy people.
The chorus in which that opera abounds gives the parterre frequent
opportunities of joining in concert with the stage. This inclination of
the audience to sing along with the actors so prevails with them that
I have sometimes known the performer on the stage to do no more in a
celebrated song than the clerk of a parish church, who serves only
to raise the psalm, and is afterward drowned in the music of the
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 r