Page:The Spirit of French Music.djvu/149

 peasant woman will be the same and will be expressed in the same fashion. There is also merit, and sometimes a great deal of merit, in the sketch of the three anabaptists.

These rapid analyses illustrate sufficiently on the dramatic side the form which Meyerbeer, aided by Scribe, invented for his own use. It is easy to see how empty, artificial and faked it is, and also how audaciously clever in the calculation of effect. I will not dwell upon the Africaine, in which we see a couple of African savages who could give points to the most skilful Portuguese navigator in the reading of marine charts, and who think and express themselves with refinements of delicacy worthy of old-fashioned diplomatists. Nor will I linger over the comic operas—the tiresome Northern Star, in which all the recipes for French lightness are applied with painful heaviness—or the Ploërmel Pardon, which is perhaps better, but contributes nothing to the glory of Meyerbeer, who certainly did not shine in comic opera.

I think too I should be wearisome if I spent long in emphasising the wretchedness of the writing. It is notorious, and it is an easy game to pick out the faults in French and the fine blossoms of absurdity. But