The form then changed to a single air in triple time, independent of the recitative, and repeated to the different verses as in a ballad, the melody being written every time, as the _Da Capo_ was not then in use.[1] Choron defines the cantata as follows:-- "It is a little poem, which, considered in a literary sense, has no very determinate character, though it is usually the recital of a simple and interesting fact interspersed with reflections or the expression of some particular sentiment. It may be in all styles and all characters, sacred, profane, heroic, comic, and even ludicrous, representing the action or feeling of either a single or several persons. It even sometimes assumes the character of the oratorio." As applied to recitative, the new form was variously called "recitativo," "musica parlante," or "stilo rappresentativo," one of the first works in which style was "The Complaint of Dido," by the Cavalier Sigismondo d'India, printed in Venice in 1623. The mixture of recitative and air was eventually called "ariose cantate;" and with this title several melodies were printed by Sebastian Enno at Venice, 1655.[2] The seventeenth century witnessed the rapid perfecting of the cantata in its early forms by the Italian composers. The best examples are said to have been those of Carissimi, of whom mention has already been made. Several of them are preserved in the British Museum and at Oxford; among them, one written on the death of Mary Queen of Scots. Burney says:-- "Of twenty-two of his cantatas preserved in the Christ Church collection, Oxon., there is not one which does not offer something that is still new, curious, and pleasing; but most particularly in the recitatives, many of which seem the most expressive, affecting, and perfect that I have seen. In the airs there are frequently sweet and graceful passages, which more than a hundred years have not impaired." Of the thirteenth in this collection the same authority says:-- "This single air, without recitative, seems the archetype of almost all the _arie di cantabile_, the adagios, and pathetic songs, as well as instrumental, slow movements, that have since been made."