As there is abundant evidence, reliable though anonymous, that scholarly circles are not without special interest just now in the ballet, it may be the proper time to consider that form of art in some of its historical relations to the theater. A recent book by Henry Prunières, le Ballet de cour en France avant Benserade et Lully, gives us for the first time a thorough treatment of the ballet during one of its great periods, the first half of the seventeenth century. It is only now, therefore, that the relations which then existed between the ballets and the plays of France can be adequately discussed. A full treatment of the subject would require and may attract the labors of a doctor's dissertation, but the general relationships can be established from material we already possess and special cases can be pointed out in which one genre borrowed directly and indisputably from the other.