in the general melody of the airs themselves; yet, in the accent, passion and expression of _English words_, the vocal music of Purcell is, sometimes, to my feelings, as superior to Handel's as an original poem to a translation." CHAPTER III. ON THE NATURE OF THE OPERA, AND ITS MERITS AS COMPARED WITH OTHER FORMS OF THE DRAMA. Opera admired for its unintelligibility.--The use of words in opera.--An inquisitive amateur.--New version of a chorus in Robert le Diable.--Strange readings of the _Credo_ by two chapel masters.--Dramatic situations and effects peculiar to the Opera.--Pleasantries directed against the Opera; their antiquity and harmlessness.--_Les Opéras_ by St. Evrémond.--Beaumarchais's _mot_.--Addison on the Italian Opera in England.--Swift's epigram.--Béranger on the decline of the drama.--What may be seen at the Opera. [Sidenote: UNINTELLIGIBILITY OF OPERA.] When Sir William Davenant obtained permission from Cromwell to open his theatre for the performance of operas, Antony à Wood wrote that, "Though Oliver Cromwell had now prohibited all other theatrical representations, he allowed of this because being in an unknown language it could not corrupt the morals of the people." Thereupon it has been imagined that Antony à Wood must have supposed Sir William Davenant's performances to have been in the Italian tongue, as if he could not have regarded music as an unknown language, and have concluded that a drama conducted in music would for that reason be unintelligible. Nevertheless, in the present day we have a censor who refuses to permit the representation of _La Dame aux Camélias_ in English, or even in French,[8] but who tolerates the performance of _La Traviata_, (which, I need hardly say, is the _Dame aux Camélias_ set to music) in Italian, and, I believe, even in English; thinking, no doubt, like Antony à Wood, that in an operatic form it cannot be understood, and therefore cannot corrupt the morals of the people. Since Antony à Wood's time a good deal of stupid, unmeaning verse has been written in operas, and sometimes when the words have not been of themselves unintelligible, they have been rendered nearly so by the manner in which they have been set to music, to say nothing of the final obscurity given to them by the imperfect enunciation of the singers. The mere fact, however, of a dramatic piece being performed in music does not make it unintelligible, but, on the contrary, increases the sphere of its intelligibility, giving it a more universal interest and rendering it an entertainment appreciable by persons of all countries. This in itself is not much to boast of, for the entertainment of the _ballet_ is independent of language to a still greater extent; and _La Gitana_ or _Esmeralda_ can be as well understood by an Englishman at the Opera House of Berlin or of Moscow as at Her Majesty's Theatre in London; while perhaps the most universally