ring, and other solemnities, may possibly have refined upon those moresque divertisements, and produced this delightful entertainment, by leaving out the warlike part of the carousals, and forming a poetical design for the use of the machines, the songs, and dances.  But however it began, (for this is only conjectural,) we know, that, for some centuries, the knowledge of music has flourished principally in Italy, the mother of learning and of arts[2]; that poetry and painting have been there restored, and so cultivated by Italian masters, that all Europe has been enriched out of their treasury; and the other parts of it, in relation to those delightful arts, are still as much provincial to Italy, as they were in the time of the Roman empire.  Their first operas seem to have been intended for the celebration of the marriages of their princes, or for the magnificence of some general time of joy; accordingly, the expences of them were from the purse of the sovereign, or of the republic, as they are still practised at Venice, Rome, and at other places, at their carnivals.  Savoy and Florence have often used them in their courts, at the weddings of their dukes; and at Turin particularly, was performed the “Pastor Fido,” written by the famous Guarini, which is a pastoral opera made to solemnise the marriage of a Duke of Savoy.  The prologue of it has given the design to all the French; which is a compliment to the sovereign power by some god or goddess; so that it looks no less than a kind of embassy from heaven to earth.  I said in the beginning of this preface, that the persons represented in operas are generally gods, goddesses, and heroes descended from them, who are supposed to be their peculiar care; which hinders not, but that meaner persons may sometimes gracefully be introduced, especially if they have relation to those first times, which poets call the Golden Age; wherein, by reason of their innocence, those happy mortals were supposed to have had a more familiar intercourse with superior beings; and therefore shepherds might reasonably be admitted, as of all callings the most innocent, the most happy, and who, by reason of the spare time they had, in their almost idle employment, had most leisure to make verses, and to be in love; without somewhat of which passion, no opera can possibly subsist.

It is almost needless to speak any thing of that noble language, in which this musical drama was first invented and performed.  All, who are conversant in the Italian, cannot but observe, that it is the softest, the sweetest, the most harmonious, not only of any modern tongue, but even beyond any of the learned.  It seems indeed to have been invented for the sake of poetry and music; the vowels are so abounding in all words, especially in terminations of them, that, excepting some few monosyllables, the whole language ends in them.  Then the pronunciation is so manly, and so sonorous, that their very speaking has more of music in it than Dutch poetry and song.  It