e to the
first eminence in operatic composition. In January it was played in
Dresden, in February at Vienna, and everywhere with the same
success.--Weber alone seemed calm and undisturbed amid the general
enthusiasm. He pursued his studies quietly, and was already deeply
engaged in the composition of a comic opera, "The Three Pintos," never
completed, and had accepted a commission for another of a romantic cast
for the Vienna stage. The text was at first to have been furnished by
Rellstab, but was ultimately written by Madame de Chezy, and written in
so imperfect and impracticable a style, that, with all Rellstab's
alterations never had a musician more to contend with than poor Weber
had to do with this old French story. As it is, however, he has caught
the spirit of the tale.

"Dance and Provencal song, and vintage mirth"

breathe in his melodies; and although a perplexed plot and want of
interest in the scene greatly impaired its theatrical effect, the
approbation with which it was notwithstanding received by all judges
of music on its first representation in Vienna (10th Oct. 1823)
sufficiently attested the triumph of the composer over his difficulties.
He was repeatedly called for and received with the loudest acclamations.
From Vienna, where he was conducting his Euryanthe, he was summoned to
Prague, to superintend the fiftieth representation of his "Freyschuetz."
His tour resembled a triumphal procession; for, on his return to
Dresden, he was greeted with a formal public reception in the theatre.

But while increasing in celebrity, and rising still higher, if that
were possible, in the estimation of the public, his health was rapidly
waning, amidst his anxious and multiplied duties. "Would to God," says
he in a letter written shortly afterwards--"Would to God that I were a
tailor, for then I should have a Sunday's holiday!" Meantime a cough,
the herald of consumption, tormented him, and "the slow minings of the
hectic fire" within began to manifest themselves more visibly in days
and nights of feverish excitement. It was in the midst of this that he
accepted the task of composing an opera for Covent Garden Theatre. His
fame, which had gradually made its way through the North of Germany
(where his Freyschuetz was played in 1823) to England, induced the
managers to offer him liberal terms for an opera on the subject of
Oberon, the well-known fairy tale on which Wieland has reared his
fantastic, but beautiful