a new form must be generated by the poem which is setting." Here we find stated in the plainest and most succinct terms the foundation principles of the modern lyric drama. It may be urged that Weber did not pursue his convictions to their extremity as Wagner did, but returned in "Oberon" to the simpler operatic style; but this, we are convinced, was partly because of the intellectual and physical lassitude due to the consumption of his vital forces, and partly because of his wish to adapt himself to the customs of the English stage and the taste of the people for whom he composed his fairy opera. This is obvious not only from his letters to Planché, the librettist of "Oberon," but from his subsequent effort to remodel the opera to suit his own ideas "so that 'Oberon' may deserve the name of opera." On February 16, 1825, he wrote: "These two acts are also filled with the greatest beauties. I embrace the whole in love, and will endeavor not to remain behind you. To this acknowledgment of your work you can give credit, the more as I must repeat, that the cut of the whole is very foreign to all my ideas and maxims. The intermixing of so many principal actors who do not sing, the omission of the music in the most important moments--all these things deprive our 'Oberon' of the title of an opera, and will make him unfit for all other theatres in Europe, which is a very bad thing for me, but _passons là dessus_." His adherence to the belief in the necessity of an intimate and affectionate relation between poetry and music, moreover, has beautiful assertion in the concluding words of the same letter: "Poets and composers live together in a sort of angels' marriage which demands a reciprocal trust."