which had already been satisfactorily decided in Italy, namely, that there was plenty of room in the world for serious and comic opera at the same time. There had been a kind of opera comique in France for many years, a species of musical pantomime which was very popular at the fairs of St. Laurent and St. Gervais. This form of entertainment scarcely came within the province of art, but it served as a starting-point for the history of opera comique, which was afterwards so brilliant. The success of the Italian company which performed the comic operas of Pergolesi, Jomelli, and others, fired the French composers to emulation, and in 1753 the first French opera comique, in the strict sense of the word, 'Le Devin du Village,' by the great Rousseau, was performed at the Academie de Musique. Musically the work is feeble and characterless, but the contrast which it offered to the stiff and serious works of the tragic composers made it popular. Whatever its faults may be, it is simple and natural, and its tender little melodies fell pleasantly upon ears too well accustomed to the pomposities of Rameau and his school. At first lovers of opera comique in Paris had to subsist chiefly upon translations from the Italian; but in 1755 'Ninette a la Cour,' a dainty little work written by a Neapolitan composer, Duni, to a French libretto, gained a great success. Soon afterwards, Monsigny, a composer who may well be called the father of opera comique, produced his first work, and started upon a career of success which extended into the next century.