Elsewhere in this rambling article I have touched on the _villancicos_ and the early song-writers. To do justice to these subjects would require a good deal more space and a different intention. Those who are interested in them may pursue these matters in Pedrell's various works. The most available collection of Spanish folk-tunes is that issued by P. Lacome and J. Puig y Alsubide (Paris, 1872). There are several collections of Basque songs; Demófilo's "Colección de Cantos Flamencos" (Seville, 1881), Cecilio Ocón's collection of Andalusian folk-songs, and F. Rodríguez Marín's "Cantos Populares Españoles" (Seville, 1882-3) may also be mentioned. V After the bull-fight the most popular form of amusement in Spain is the zarzuela, the only distinctive art-form which Spanish music has evolved, but there has been no progress; the form has not changed, except perhaps to degenerate, since its invention in the early seventeenth century. Soriano Fuertes and other writers have devoted pages to grieving because Spanish composers have not taken occasion to make something grander and more important out of the zarzuela. The fact remains that they have not, although, small and great alike, they have all taken a hand at writing these entertainments. But as they found the zarzuela, so they have left it. It must be conceded that the form is quite distinct from that of opera and should not be confused with it. And the Spaniards are probably right when they assert that the zarzuela is the mother of the French opéra-bouffe. At least it must be admitted that Offenbach and Lecocq and their precursors owe something of the germ of their inspiration to the Spanish form. Today the melody chests of the zarzuela markets are plundered to find tunes for French _revues_, and such popular airs as _La Paraguaya_ and _Y ... Como le Vá?_ were originally danced and sung in Spanish theatres. The composer of these airs, J. Valverde _fils_, indeed found the French market so good that he migrated to Paris, and for some time has been writing _musique mélangée ... une moitié de chaque nation_. So _La Rose de Grenade_, composed for Paris, might have been written for Spain, with slight melodic alterations and tauromachian allusions in the book.