[155] The celebrated pamphlet of the priest Jeremias Collier appeared in 1688: "A short view of the immorality and profaneness of the English stage with the sense of Antiquity," had made an epoch because it expressed with an ardent conviction the hidden feelings of the nation. Dryden, the first, did humble penitence. [156] See the Preface to his _Amphion Britannicus_ in 1700. Blow died in 1708. [157] There had been several efforts on the part of Italian opera companies in London under the Restoration of 1660 and 1674. None had succeeded, but certain Italians were installed in London, and had some success: about 1667 G. B. Draghi, about 1677 the violinist Niccolo Matteis, who spread the knowledge in English of the instrumental works of Vitali and of Bassani; the family of Italian singers, Pietro Reggio de Gênes, and the famous Siface (Francesco Grossi), who in 1687 was the first to give Scarlatti in London; Marguerita de l'Espine, who during 1692 gave Italian concerts; but it was in 1702 that the infatuation for the Italians commenced. [158] He was the brother of the celebrated Bononcini (Giovanni). [159] This was _Rosamunde_, played in 1707, which had only three representations. Addison, very little of a musician, had taken as his collaborator the insipid Clayton. His satires against the Italian opera appeared in March and April, 1710, in the _Spectator_. [160] The struggle was put into evidence in 1708, three years before the Haymarket Theatre was founded under the patronage of the Queen, by the poet Congreve, who gave there the old English plays. In 1708 the English drama left the place and opera installed itself. [161] Two German musicians established in England, and naturalized, Dr. Christoph Pepusch and Nichilo Francesco Haym, pushed certain of their compositions on to the Italian opera stage in London. They were found there later. Pepusch, founder of the Academy of Ancient Music in 1710, was badly disposed against Handel, whose operas he ridiculed in the famous _Beggars' Opera_ of 1728. Haym, who wished to publish in 1730 a great history of music, was one of Handel's librettists. The Library of the Paris Conservatoire possessed a volume of airs from the principal Italian operas displayed in London from 1706 to 1710 (London, Walsh). [162] When the poet Barthold Feind gave in 1715 the translation of _Rinaldo_ at Hamburg, he did not neglect to call him the universally celebrated Mr. Handel, known to the Italians as "_l'Orfeo del nostro secolo_" and "_un ingegno sublime_." [163] He did not hurry. He stayed at Düsseldorf with the Elector Palatine (A. Einstein, etc., April, 1907), then in the later months of the year he went to see his family at Halle. [164] To speak truly, they were more like little cantatas than _lieder_. The Collection Schoelcher in the Library of the Paris Conservatoire possesses these copies. [165] Volumes XXVII and XLVIII of the Complete Handel Edition.