suitable for church music, yet comedy in the best sense of the term. The famous prize song in this work is sufficiently well known. There is a most delightful finale in the third act, where Beckmesser's serenade occurs as one of the incidents. The other work, "Tristan and Isolde," is the most difficult opera that has ever been written, and will have to wait a generation yet, most likely, before its beauties are fully appreciated. After composing these two enormous works, Wagner went on to finish "_Siegfried_," and then completed the work by writing "_Die Goetterdaemmerung_" ("The Twilight of the Gods"), or, "The Death of Siegfried," as he had originally intended to call it. This work contains one number which is stupendous in its pathos, "The Funeral March of Siegfried." Nothing like it exists elsewhere. These four operas have a very remarkable peculiarity, that throughout the four there are certain leading motives, which repeatedly occur. There is the motive of "the magic fire," which cuts a great figure in the first opera of the series, where Loki, the fire god, appears and is ushered in by this motive. It occurs again in the magic fire scene, at the close of "_Die Walkuere_," where Wotan surrounds Brunhilde with shrieking flames, in order that their terrors may deter cowards from waking her. There is the "sword motive," which is heard in the first opera, when this sword is first spoken of; it is finely developed where the sword is drawn, and again in the opera of "_Siegfried_," where it is freshly welded. There is the "Walhalla motive," the "Siegfried motive," the "Valkyrie motive," and many others, to the number of nearly one hundred. These are woven together, especially in the last opera of the series, in a most astonishing and wonderful way, yet without impairing the musical flow of the work. The scores are also extremely elaborate, from an orchestral point of view, requiring a large number of instruments, most of them having a great deal to do. This great trilogy, as Wagner called it, which was at first supposed to be beyond the ability of the public to appreciate, has now been given in all parts of Germany with great success, and it is no longer beyond the ability of an audience to enjoy.