A Composer should fit his Musick to the Genius of the People, and consider that the Delicacy of Hearing, and Taste of Harmony, has been formed upon those Sounds which every Country abounds with:  In short, that Musick is of a Relative Nature, and what is Harmony to one Ear, may be Dissonance to another.

The same Observations which I have made upon the Recitative part of Musick may be applied to all our Songs and Airs in general.

Signior Baptist Lully [4] acted like a Man of Sense in this Particular.  He found the French Musick extreamly defective, and very often barbarous:  However, knowing the Genius of the People, the Humour of their Language, and the prejudiced Ears [he [5]] had to deal with he did not pretend to extirpate the French Musick, and plant the Italian in its stead; but only to Cultivate and Civilize it with innumerable Graces and Modulations which he borrow’d from the Italian.  By this means the French Musick is now perfect in its kind; and when you say it is not so good as the Italian, you only mean that it does not please you so well; for there is [scarce [6]] a Frenchman who would not wonder to hear you give the Italian such a Preference.  The Musick of the French is indeed very properly adapted to their Pronunciation and Accent, as their whole Opera wonderfully favours the Genius of such a gay airy People.  The Chorus in which that Opera abounds, gives the Parterre frequent Opportunities of joining in Consort with the Stage.  This Inclination of the Audience to Sing along with the Actors, so prevails with them, that I have sometimes known the Performer on the Stage do no more in a Celebrated Song, than the Clerk of a Parish Church, who serves only to raise the Psalm, and is afterwards drown’d in the Musick of the Congregation.  Every Actor that comes on the Stage is a Beau.  The Queens and Heroines are so Painted, that they appear as Ruddy and Cherry-cheek’d as Milk-maids.  The Shepherds are all Embroider’d, and acquit themselves in a Ball better than our English Dancing Masters.  I have seen a couple of Rivers appear in red Stockings; and Alpheus, instead of having his Head covered with Sedge and Bull-Rushes, making Love in a fair full-bottomed Perriwig, and a Plume of Feathers; but with a Voice so full of Shakes and Quavers that I should have thought the Murmurs of a Country Brook the much more agreeable Musick.

I remember the last Opera I saw in that merry Nation was the Rape of Proserpine, where Pluto, to make the more tempting Figure, puts himself in a French Equipage, and brings Ascalaphus along with him as his Valet de Chambre.  This is what we call Folly and Impertinence; but what the French look upon as Gay and Polite.