the official and theatrical life of the Suabian capital were notorious throughout Europe. The charm of Weber's mind and manners drew about him many good influences, particularly the friendship of Capellmeister Danzi, but the moral stamina to withstand the temptations which beset him on all hands had not been developed, and he abandoned himself to a course of life which threatened his moral as well as artistic ruin. His boon companions were one of the sirens of the theatre and the members of a coterie known as "Faust's Descent into Hell." From the dangers which beset him he was most rudely rescued. He had incurred the anger of the King while delivering one of the many unpleasant messages of Duke Ludwig, who was the King's brother, and avenged himself for the contumely poured on him by directing an old woman, who had inquired for the Royal laundress, into the King's cabinet. It required the intervention of the Duke to save him from imprisonment, but the King's anger was not appeased, and he soon found occasion to punish Weber for the insult. The misrepresentations of a servant to a citizen from whom Weber borrowed money led the former to believe that the loan would purchase an appointment for his son in the Duke's household and consequent immunity from military service. The appointment not following, Weber was denounced to the King, tried by a process quite as summary as a drum-head court-martial, and banished from Wirtemberg along with his father, in whose behalf the loan had been made. It was the year 1810, and it marks Weber's moral regeneration. He resolved thereafter to devote himself honestly and seriously to the service of his art. His artistic achievements during this decade were scarcely significant enough to outweigh the unhappy incidents of his life. At Freiberg he forgot his father's lithographic schemes long enough to set an opera book written by Ritter von Steinsberg on the familiar folk-tale of the Seven Ravens, entitled "Das Stumme Waldmädchen," which was performed in Freiberg, Chemnitz, Prague and even Vienna and St. Petersburg, without making a decided success. In the course of his second stay in Salzburg he composed "Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn," which was brought out with indifferent results at Augsburg. During his trip through Northern Germany he developed a thirst for theoretical knowledge and also a bent toward literature which grew with time, made him a student of the writings of Kant and Schelling, in Stuttgart, and filled his head for a space with thoughts of a critical journal. His choice of Abbé Vogler as a teacher has generally been deplored, but it seems to have been beneficial in this respect, at least, that under the influence of that man of brilliant if superficial talents, he ceased the production of unripe works and took up the analysis of masterpieces and the study of folk-music. The circumstance that his writings for two years are practically summed up in a pianoforte