cond treatise on harmony,
"New System of Musical Theory," was published in 1725. These works
excited a great deal of attention and brought the author renown, but
his soul yearned for recognition as composer, and in 1730 he obtained
from Voltaire a libretto, "Samson." This work was declined at the
national opera, on the ground that the public was not attracted by
Biblical subjects. Three years later, however, he composed another,
"_Hypolite et Arcie_," which was performed with moderate success. He
had now reached the age of fifty, and entered upon the second stage of
his artistic career, and the second period of the French opera. The
admirers of Rameau invited appreciation of the new works upon the
ground of their being better than those of Lulli, and all Paris was
divided into two opposite camps. Rameau is entitled to having
developed his operas more musically than those of Lulli, and the later
ones became still richer upon the orchestral side.

The entire list of operas by Rameau numbers about thirty. That they
did not preserve their popularity so long as those of Lulli is due to
their deficiency upon the dramatic side, especially to the inherent
inexpressiveness of the music itself. The treatment of the orchestra
is clever in many places, showing a manifest improvement over that of
Lulli, especially in the freedom of thematic work. He also ventures
occasionally on enharmonic changes.

Contemporaneous with him was that remarkable genius, Jean Jacques
Rousseau (1712-1778), the father of the kindergarten idea, and of many
other humanitarian and educational novelties. Rousseau's importance in
the history of music is not sufficient to justify an account of his
early days. With a great fondness for music, he found it extremely
difficult to read by note, as he was almost entirely self-taught. This
led him to devise a simpler notation, which he did about 1740,
publishing an account of it in 1743. His system was substantially
that of the tonic sol fa, except that he used figures in place of
letters. He presented a memorial to the Academy of Sciences upon this
subject in 1742, but his plan was so vigorously opposed by Rameau that
nothing came of it; nevertheless the idea was afterward worked out by
M. Paris, in the present century, and has proven very useful among the
_Orpheonistes_. In 1752 Rameau produced his first opera "_Le Devin du
Village_," a very light affair, somewhat on the order of what Germans
call a Singspiel. Th