Many of the scenes are characterized by an artlessness and grace that recall Florian's _les Deux Billets_ or Musset's _A quoi revent les jeunes Filles_. It is the poetry of an epoch of prose. "All the poetry of the first half of the eighteenth century is in Marivaux, as all the poetry of the second half is in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and in Bernardin de Saint- Pierre."[64] The first two plays of Marivaux presented to the public were performed upon the stage of the Theatre-Italien, and throughout his life he showed a marked preference for that theatre. His success was brilliant, and _Arlequin poli par l'Amour_ had twelve representations. At last Marivaux appears to have found his true sphere; but no, he has still to feel his way, and to experience another check, before entrusting himself to the promptings of his genius. His was not a talent to blossom in a night, and only an over-zealous friend could say of him: "Il ne se decida point pour les lettres, il fut entraine par elles. Il ne chercha point a devenir auteur, il fut etonne de l'etre devenu."[65] At this time tragedy still held sway over the hearts of the French, although the period of its glory was past. As nearly every writer of the century had produced his tragedy, not to mention the immediate friends of Marivaux, Fontenelle with his _Aspar_ and La Motte with his _Oedipe_ and _Romulus_, it is not strange that Marivaux felt tempted to try his wings in this upper sphere. His _Annibal_, a tragedy in five acts and in verse, was produced at the Theatre-Francais on December 16, 1720. In this play the very qualities, destined later to procure for the author such splendid successes in his comedies, were either lacking or out of place. It survived four representations, three at the Theatre-Francais and one at Court, and then disappeared from the repertory, not to be taken up again until Marivaux was an academician, and as such, in the minds of many, of course worthy of applause. Marivaux had the good judgment to abandon a style of composition for which he was in no way fitted, and, on May 3, 1722, returned to the Theatre- Italien with _la Surprise de l'Amour_, a comedy in three acts, and a decided success. His predilection for the Theatre-Italien was such that he gave to it twenty of his plays, while only ten were brought out at the Theatre-Francais. "Of the six plays of our author which were to remain in the repertory, only one, _le Legs_, was first played at the Comedie- Francaise; the five others, _la Surprise de l'Amour_, _le Jeu de l'Amour et du Hasard_, _l'Ecole des Meres_, _les Fausses Confidences_, _l'Epreuve_, appeared for the first time at the Theatre-Italien."[66] L'abbe de La Porte declares, moreover, that, had it not been for his support, through lack of spectators the actors would have been obliged to give up their theatre.[67]