which is now the common property of people from one end of the land to the other. But, as we have said, German national life was not vigorous in the seventeenth century, and the work of the ‘poet patriots’ passed into comparative oblivion. Italian opera quickly became established in all the court centres of Germany, and its ideals, nurtured especially by Reinhard Keiser in Hamburg, dominated the conscious musical life of the nation. French refinement entered in, to the detriment of indigenous art. The songs of the time, written by J. G. Graun (1698-1771), G. P. Telemann (1681-1767), Agricola, and others, were called odes and arias, imitating the French and Italian names as they imitated the French and Italian forms, and the _volkstümliches Lied_ as well as the true art-song was again in disrepute. We should mention, however, the few secular songs of J. S. Bach, which reveal, in spite of their lack of originality in form, a delicate poetic sense, especially in the little love-song, _Bist du bei mir_. For the true art-song Germany had to wait until it had achieved some amalgamation of the social and cultural life of the nation. Much the most grateful song literature of the long transition period is to be found in France. There, Gallic taste restrained opera from the worst excesses of the Italian school, while the French sense of grace and proportion produced a multitude of trifles which have by no means lost their charm to this day. Moreover, as the eighteenth century wore to a close there arose a wonderful tradition of patriotic and idealistic songs which outshone the similar songs of Germany in brilliance if not, on the whole, in stark emotional power.