It is instructive to note, so an American musical critic once asserted, that of all Gounod's dozen operas, "the only two which have survived are the two which are derived from Goethe's 'Faust' and from Shakspere's 'Romeo and Juliet'"; and he added a reminder that in these operas the music owes its success "not only to the aid derived from its associations with a favorite play, but also in part to the fact that the composer's creative imagination was fertilized by the splendid opportunities for dramatic composition offered by these plays. Gounod was moved by the joys and woes of Margaret and of Juliet, and it is only under the influence of deep feeling that such masterworks can be created." When Gounod set to music a poetic play by Goethe, and when Verdi set to music a group of characters created by Shakspere, the composers might well be inspired by the poets; and they were thus aided to attain the utmost of which they are capable as musicians. But it may be doubted whether any musician could find any really helpful inspiration in dramas of vulgar violence, such as the 'Tosca' of Sardou, and the 'Salomé' of Oscar Wilde; and it is extremely improbable that the operas composed to such unworthy themes will be able to achieve any durable popularity. In plots of so coarse a character there is neither beauty nor poetry, and the vogue of music-dramas having subjects so debased is likely to be fleeting. On the other hand, there was both poetry and beauty in the original plays of 'Madam Butterfly' and 'Cavalleria Rusticana,' and we need not be surprised if the operas composed on these themes prove to have a long life in the musical theaters. We may even go further and suggest that there was a haunting and ethereal grace about Maeterlinck's 'Pelléas et Mélisande' which seemed almost to demand translation into the sister art of music. The two most effective French comedies of the eighteenth century, the 'Barber of Seville' and the 'Marriage of Figaro,' supplied librettos, one for Rossini and the other for Mozart. We may be sure that sooner or later some other composer, Italian or American or German, will be tempted to undertake an opera based on Fulda's 'Two Sisters,' in which there could not help being a very effective part for the prima donna. And sooner or later again some musician with an appreciation of humor and sentiment will be moved to take for his libretto the comedy of 'Masks and Faces,' by Charles Reade and Tom Taylor, generally known by the name of its fascinating heroine, Peg Woffington. No doubt there are not a few other modern plays in which composers will discover musical possibilities. III