After _Freischütz_ it was indeed ‘scarcely possible to rise higher,’ but Weber attempted a more ambitious task in a purely musical way in his next opera, _Euryanthe_, which was a glorification of the romanticism of the age--that of Jean Paul and E. T. A. Hoffmann, who represented to the Germans of the time vigor of the imagination and the freedom of the individual. Both _Euryanthe_ and _Oberon_, which followed it, are very fine, but they could not repeat the success of _Der Freischütz_, chiefly because Weber could not find another _Freischütz_ libretto. The composer died in England on June 4, 1826, after conducting the first performances of _Oberon_ at Covent Garden. Personally we see Weber as a man of the world, yet always with a bit of aristocratic reserve. He had been one of a wandering theatrical troupe, had played behind the scenes of a theatre, had known financial ups and downs, had lived on something like familiar terms with gentlemen and ladies of the court, had been a _roué_ with the young bloods of degree, had intrigued and been the victim of intrigue, had been a concert pianist with the outward success and the social stigma of a virtuoso musician, had been a successful executive in responsible positions, had played the litterateur and written a fashionable novel, had been a devoted husband and father, and had felt the meaning of a great social movement. Certainly Weber was the first of that distinguished line of musicians who cultivated literature with marked talent and effect; his letters reveal the practised observer and the literary craftsman, and his criticisms of music, of which he wrote many at a certain period, have the insight of Schumann, with something more than his verve. Finally, he was the first great composer who was also a distinguished director; his work at Prague and Dresden was hardly less a creative feat than _Der Freischütz_.