About the year 1760, Piccini, who was the Rossini of his day, was called
to Paris to reform the grand opera. The French, roused by the elegant
tirades of Rousseau, and the piquant witticisms of all the foreigners
who visited Paris, began to conceive it possible that their music was
not the finest in the world. The reform which Piccini introduced, was
however, but partial, and the French insisted on having Italian music
adapted to French words. They have still an opera of their own; but
nothing can be more noisy, or less harmonious than the music at the
Académie Royale--all tumult, glitter, and show. There is no ballet,
except that incidental to the opera; but in scenery and machinery they
surprise the English visiter. The French military bands too are equally
discordant; so fond are they of drums, that they seem to have converted
the tympana of their ears into parchment.
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