We may further mention among the characteristic compositions which are not in the religious or the dramatic style:—Scene from Corneille’s “Les Horaces,” for soprano, baritone and orchestra; six Persian melodies, vocal and instrumental (piano); “Les Soldats de Gédéon,” double chorus without accompaniment; “Chanson du Grand-papa,” chorus for female voices; “Chanson d’un Ancêtre,” chorus for male voices with baritone solo; “La Lyre et la Harpe,” soli, chorus and orchestra; two choruses with piano accompaniment: “Calme des Nuits” and “Les Fleurs et les Arbres”; two choruses for male voices without accompaniment: “Les Marins de Kermor” and “Les Titans”; “Les Guerriers,” chorus for male voices; several other choruses, besides some fifty duets and melodies with piano accompaniment. We abridge the list in order to mention the composer’s dramatic works: “Le Timbre d’Argent”; “La Princesse Jaune,” comic opera in one act; “Proserpine,” lyric drama in four acts; “Etienne Marcel,” opera in four acts; “Samson et Dalila,” biblical opera in three acts; “Henry VIII.,” opera in four acts; and lastly, “Ascanio,” opera in five acts. It has been said with truth that Saint-Saëns is of all composers the one who differs most from himself, in his dramatic works. We mean by this that he has emancipated himself from the hard and fast lines of any particular school; that he has no system and is guided wholly by his own inspiration, tempered and strengthened by great musical learning. He could, if he so desired, write according to the theories or in the manner of this or of that composer, but he prefers to write as his genius follows its own individual vein, agreeing, no doubt, with his famous colleague and friend, Charles Gounod, that if there are many systems of composition, there are, after all, only two kinds of music: that which is good and that which is bad. His admiration for all the great masters is profound, but he strives to imitate none, this has caused certain critics to subject him to the reproach of eclecticism. He has expressed himself on this point with frank sincerity (for Saint-Saëns is a man as well as a musician) in a highly interesting volume entitled “Harmonie et Mélodie.” After declaring that he had never belonged to any religion in music, he adds: “I claim to preserve my liberty, to like what pleases me and to reject the rest; to believe good that which is good, discordant that which is discordant, absurd that which is absurd. This is precisely what the more ardent disciples of Wagner refuse to concede. They grasp you by the throat, and insist that you must admire everything Wagnerian, no heed what it may be. With them there is something beyond love of art: the spirit of sectarianism. I am afraid of sectarians, and so keep myself prudently aloof from them.”