Capital, telling lines, no doubt, though is it not equally strange that there should be such a difference between one piece of painted canvas and another, or between a statue by Michael Angelo and the figure of a Scotchman outside a tobacconist's shop? These differences exist, and it proves nothing against art that savages and certain exceptional natures among civilized men are unable to perceive them. We wonder how the Dean of St. Patrick's would have got on with the Abbé Arnauld, who was so impressed with the sublimity of one of the pieces in Gluck's _Iphigénie_, that he exclaimed, "With that air one might found a new religion!" [Sidenote: BERANGER ON THE DECLINE OF THE DRAMA.] One of the wittiest poems written against our modern love of music (cultivated, it must be admitted, to a painful extent by many incapable amateurs) is the lament by Béranger, in which the poet, after complaining that the convivial song is despised as not sufficiently artistic, and that in the presence of the opera the drama itself is fast disappearing, exclaims: Si nous t'enterrons Bel art dramatique, Pour toi nous dirons La messe en musique. Without falling into the same error as those who have accused Addison of a selfish and interested animosity towards the Opera, I may remark that song-writers have often very little sympathy for any kind of music except that which can be easily subjected to words, as in narrative ballads, and to a certain extent ballads of all kinds. When a man says "I don't care much for music, but I like a good song," we may generally infer that he does not care for music at all. So play-wrights have a liking for music when it can be introduced as an ornament into their pieces, but not when it is made the most important element in the drama--indeed, the drama itself. Favart, the author of numerous opera-books, has left a good satirical description in verse of French opera. It ends as follows:-- Quiconque voudra Faire un opéra, Emprunte à Pluton, Son peuple démon; Qu'il tire des cieux Un couple de dieux, Qu'il y joigne un héros Tendre jusqu' aux os. Lardez votre sujet, D'un éternel ballet. Amenez au milieu d'une fête La tempête, Une bête, Que quelqu'un tûra Dès qu'il la verra. Quiconque voudra faire un opéra Fuira de la raison Le triste poison. Il fera chanter Concerter et sauter Et puis le reste ira, Tout comme il pourra. [Sidenote: PANARD ON THE OPERA.]