The Abbe Georg Joseph Vogler was born at Wuerzburg (Bavaria), June 15, 1749; appointed Kappelmeister to the King of Sweden, in 1786. While in this capacity, the “musical instrument of his invention”, called the Orchestrion, was constructed; * went to London with his organ, in 1790, and gave a series of successful concerts, realizing some 1200 Pounds, and making a name as an organist; commissioned to reconstruct the organ of the Pantheon on the plan of his Orchestrion; and later, received like commissions at Copenhagen and at Neu Ruppin in Prussia; founded a school of music at Copenhagen, and published there many works; in 1807 was appointed by the Grand Duke, Louis I., Kappelmeister at Darmstadt; founded there his last school, two of his pupils being Weber and Meyerbeer; died in 1814. Browning presents Vogler as a great extemporizer, in which character he appears to have been the most famous. For a further account, see Miss Eleanor Marx’s paper on the Abbe Vogler, from which the above facts have been derived (‘Browning Soc. Papers’, Pt. III., pp. 339-343). Her authorities are Fetis’s ‘Biogr. Univ. des Musiciens’ and Nisard’s ‘Vie de l’Abbe Vogler’. -- * “This was a very compact organ, in which four key-boards of five octaves each, and a pedal board of thirty-six keys, with swell complete, were packed into a cube of nine feet. See Fetis’s ‘Biographie Universelle des Musiciens’.--G. Grove.” ‘Note to Miss Marx’s Art. on Vogler’. -- Mrs. Turnbull, in her paper on ‘Abt Vogler’ (‘Browning Soc. Papers’, Pt. IV., pp. 469-476), has so well traced the argument of the monologue, that I cannot do better than quote the portion of her paper in which she presents it:--