strictest kind, and soon after his installation had fallen into a violent controversy with Frohne, which lasted for years and was still in progress when Bach came to Mühlhausen. The musician espoused Eilmar's cause with ardor and did not hesitate to express his opinions publicly, thus affording another manifestation of the spirit of obstinate defiance which formed one of his fundamental traits. For it was impossible that he should be attracted by a prosaic, arrogant, and thoroughly unpleasing personality like that of Eilmar, neither was he in any wise a fanatical partisan of orthodoxy. He held firmly to the belief of his fathers, but to inquire into the principles of their faith was an idea that never occurred to him. Whatever needs his religion may have failed to satisfy were more than filled by his art and the conscientious manner in which he exercised it. For the next nine years of his life Bach was established in Weimar as court organist and chamber musician; after 1714 he also officiated as concert-master of the ducal chapel and performed some of the duties of capellmeister. Everything that had been lacking in Mühlhausen, he found here at the court of Duke Wilhelm Ernst, a man whose strongly marked personal character was reflected upon his surroundings, imparting to them something of the genial Thuringian spirit. Differing from most of his compeers in possessing a lively sense of his obligations as a ruler, he failed to cherish the delusion that his subjects only existed for the convenience of the reigning class. He was of an earnest nature, this great-grand-uncle of Goethe's friend Karl August, and lived without ostentation, almost as simply indeed as an ordinary citizen, in his castle of Wilhelmsburg. Without children and separated from his wife after a brief, unhappy union, all his interests were centred in the welfare of the little province; above all, he occupied himself with church and school affairs. Even as a child, he had displayed the strong theological bias which always distinguished him, and had afterwards studied for three years at the University of Jena. His favorite associates were members of the clerical profession, and in order to provide for the spiritual needs of the town of Weimar, which numbered at that time about 5,000 inhabitants, he increased the number of preachers, in whose conferences and theological discussions he took an active part. Orthodox in belief, he hated and prohibited all sectarian controversy, and without diminishing his zeal for the elevation of ecclesiastical standards and the broadening of church organization, he extended a protecting care over the arts and sciences. Weimar owes to him not only its gymnasium, but also the foundation of its library, at present so justly renowned. He took pains to support an excellent music chapel and even tolerated an opera at his court. Chamber music was by no means neglected, but the strongest interest manifested by the duke