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62 and produced in England in the Italian style, Arsinoé, Queen of Cyprus." This nullity, played at Drury Lane in 1705, had a great success, which even exceeded the authentic Italian opera given in the following year in London, Camilla, regina de' Volsci, by Marc Antonio Bononcini. Vainly Addison tried to battle against the Italian invasion. By writing skits on the snobbism of the public with pleasant irony, he endeavoured to oppose the Italian Opera with a national English one. He was defeated, and with him the entire English theatre collapsed. "Thomyris" in 1707 inaugurated the representations half in Italian and half in English, and after the Almahade in January, 1710, all was in Italian. No English musician attempted to continue the struggle.

When Handel arrived then, at the end of 1710,