had corrupted English song with her Damons and
Strephons, her "Chlorisses and Phylisses," and that
the dances with which she was supposed to have
vulgarized the drama and the opera had introduced
notes of triviality and irresponsibility into all lyric
poetry. Dryden for one was fond of dances, and
ran them into his plays whenever there was an ex-
cuse. In Marriage à la Mode Melantha and Palamede
quote two pieces from Molière's ballet in Le Bour-
geois Gentilhomme. Voiture's airy nothings also had
their day in England. The second song in Dryden's
Sir Martin Mar-All, beginning,

Blind love, to this hour,
Had never, like me, a slave under his power.
Then blest be the dart
That he threw at my heart,
For nothing can prove
A joy so great as to be wounded with love,

was adapted from Voiture:

L'Amour sous sa loy
N'a jamais eu d'amant plus heureux que moy;
Benit soit son flambeau,
Son carquois, son bandeau,
Je suis amoreux,
Et le ciel ne voit point d'amant plus heureux.

But the most serious charge against France was
brought against her music.

Music had an important place in the education of
gentlemen and poets throughout the Europe of the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A larger pro-

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