One of the very few good original _libretti_ in the English language is that of _Robin Hood_, by Mr. Oxenford. The best of all English libretti, in point of literary merit, being probably Dryden's _Albion and Albanius_, while the best French libretto in all respects is decidedly Victor Hugo's _Esmeralda_. Mr. Macfarren has, in many places, given quite an English character to the music of _Robin Hood_, though, in doing so, he has not (as has been asserted) founded a national style of operatic music; for the same style applied to subjects not English might be found as inappropriate as the music of _The Barber of Seville_ would be adapted to _Tom and Jerry_. A great deal can be written and very little decided about this question of nationality of style in music. If Auber's style is French, (instead of being his own, as I should say) what was that of Rameau? If "The Marseillaise" is such a thoroughly French air (as every one admits), how is it that it happens to be an importation from Germany? The Royalist song of "Pauvre Jacques" passed for French, but it was Dibdin's "Poor Jack." How is it that "Malbrook" sounds so French, and "We won't go home till morning" so English--an attempt, by the way, having been made to show that the airs common to both these songs were sung originally by the Spanish Moors? I fancy the great point, after all, is to write good music; and if it be written to good English words, full of English rhythm and cadence, it will, from that alone, derive a sufficiently English character. Handel appears to me to have done far greater service to English Opera than Arne or any of our English and pseudo-English operatic composers whose works are now utterly forgotten, except by musical antiquaries; for Handel established Italian Opera among us on a grand artistic scale, and since then, at Her Majesty's Theatre, and subsequently at the comparatively new Royal Italian Opera, all the finest works, whether of the Italian, the German, or the French school, have been brought out as fast as they have been produced abroad, and, on the whole, in very excellent style. English Opera has no history, no unbroken line of traditions; it has no regular sequence of operatic weeks by native composers; but at our Italian Opera Houses, the whole history of dramatic music has been exemplified, and from Gluck to Verdi is still exemplified in the present day. We take no note, it is true, of the old French composers,--Lulli, who begat Rameau, and Rameau, who begat no one--and for the reason just indicated. There are plenty of amusing stories about the _Académie Royale_ from its very foundation, but the true history of dramatic music in France dates from the arrival of Gluck in Paris in 1774. CHAPTER VIII. FRENCH OPERA FROM LULLI TO THE DEATH OF RAMEAU. Ramists and Lullists.--Rameau's Letters of nobility.--His death.--Affairs of honour and love.--Sophie Arnould.--Madame Favart.--Charles Edward at the Académie.