pera just then was Meyerbeer. For some reason he lost his place at
Riga, and resolved to visit London, taking ship across the Black sea.
It was a sailing vessel of small burden, and they encountered a very
violent storm. He heard the legend of the Flying Dutchman, and the
next year made a poem of it and commenced to write the opera. He spent
some time in Paris, where he hoped to get his "Rienzi" accepted at the
Grand Opera. This opera he had written on a large scale in the hope of
pleasing Meyerbeer, whose influence at Paris was very strong at this
time. This, however, he failed to do, very possibly because his opera
was too good. He was reduced to great straits, and had to write
_potpourri_ for the cornet and piano at a beggarly price, in order to
gain a living. In 1843 his "Rienzi" was accepted at Dresden, through
the influence of Meyerbeer. It was performed with great success, and
Wagner was called there as conductor. Here he had an important
position, having to produce the best operas of all schools. He brought
out his own "Flying Dutchman" and had already finished "_Tannhaeuser_."
He read the Arthur legends, and conceived the idea of an opera upon a
subject connected with the Holy Grail. This was "_Lohengrin_,"
completed in March, 1848. It was in a fair way to have been produced
under his own direction if he had had the good sense to let politics
alone; but in some way he mixed himself up in the revolutionary
attempt of that year, and was obliged to flee the country. He went to
Zurich, where he lived in great poverty at first, but afterward with a
certain moderate income, for nearly ten years. This circumstance was
evidently providential, as will appear in the sequel.

[Illustration: Fig. 78.

RICHARD WAGNER.]

Franz Liszt was now conductor at Weimar, and he brought out
"_Lohengrin"_ in 1850. From this moment a friendship was established
between these two remarkable men. Liszt sent Wagner a handsome
_honorarium_, and from this time on was his financial guardian. By
this time Wagner's art theories had become pretty well defined. From
his standpoint the three great arts of music, poetry and drama had
been independently explored to their limit--music by Beethoven, poetry
and the drama by Shakespeare and Goethe--and the only remaining thing
of importance to do was to unite them all in one homogeneous mass, and
by their combined operation accomplish a more profound and
overwhelming effect than had been made before, o