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it.^[1] A renewal of Puritanical opposition which attacked the English stage contributed to the discouragement and abdication of the national artists.^[2] The last master of the great epoch, John Blow, an estimable artist, famous in his time, whose personality is a little grey and faded, was not wanting in distinction or in expressive feeling—but he had then withdrawn himself into his religious thoughts.^[3]

In the absence of English composers, the Italians took possession of the field.^[4] An old musician of the Chapel Royal, Thomas Clayton, brought from Italy some opera libretti, scores, and singers. He took an old libretto from Boulogne, caused it to be translated into English by a Frenchman, and clumsily adapted it to music of little worth; and, such as it was, he proudly called it "The first musical drama which has been entirely composed

1. It was no longer French influence, which, very powerful at the time of the Stuarts, had very nearly disappeared during the Revolution of 1688; but the Italian.
2. The celebrated pamphlet of the priest Jeremias Collier appeared in 1688: "A short view of the immorality and profaneness of the English stage with the sense of Antiquity," had made an epoch because it expressed with an ardent conviction the hidden feelings of the nation. Dryden, the first, did humble penitence.
3. See the Preface to his Amphion Britannicus in 1700. Blow died in 1708.
4. There had been several efforts on the part of Italian opera companies in London under the Restoration of 1660 and 1674. None had succeeded, but certain Italians were installed in London, and had some success: about 1667 G. B. Draghi, about 1677 the violinist Niccolo Matteis, who spread the knowledge in English of the instrumental works of Vitali and of Bassani; the family of Italian singers, Pietro Reggio de Gênes, and the famous Siface (Francesco Grossi), who in 1687 was the first to give Scarlatti in London; Marguerita de l'Espine, who during 1692 gave Italian concerts; but it was in 1702 that the infatuation for the Italians commenced.