availed himself of Wagner's skill in having him
make vocal scores of operas, or arrange popular melodies for the piano
and other instruments. Wagner also wrote stories and essays for musical
periodicals, for which he received fair remuneration; but his attempt to
compose romances and become a parlor favorite failed. Nobody wanted his
songs, and he finally offered them to the editor of a periodical in
Germany for two dollars and a half to four dollars apiece. This may seem
ludicrously pathetic; but then had not poor Schubert, a little more than
a decade before this, sold much better songs for twenty cents each!

Meyerbeer no doubt aided Wagner, but considering his very great
influence in Paris, he achieved surprisingly little for him. The score
of "Rienzi" had been completed in 1840, and in the spring of the next
year, Wagner went to Meudon, near Paris, and there composed the music of
"The Flying Dutchman," in seven weeks, but neither of these operas
seemed to have the least chance to appear on the boards of the Grand
Opera. The best their author could do was to sell the libretto of "The
Flying Dutchman" for one hundred dollars, reserving the right to set it
to music himself.

The outcome of all these disappointments was that he finally lost hope
so far as Paris was concerned, and sent his "Rienzi" to Dresden and his
"Flying Dutchman" to Berlin. The "Novice of Palermo" he had given up
entirely after the bankruptcy of the Renaissance Theatre, because, as he
wrote, "I felt that I could no longer respect myself as its composer."
Meyerbeer had, at his request, kindly sent a note to the intendant of
the Dresden Opera, in which he said, among other things, that he had
found the selections from "Rienzi," which Wagner had played for him,
"highly imaginative and of great dramatic effect." Tichatschek, the
famous Dresden tenor, examined the score, and liked the title role; the
chorus director, Fischer, also pleaded for the acceptance of the opera;
and so at last Wagner got word in Paris that it would be produced in
Dresden. As Berlin, too, retained the manuscript of his other opera,
there was reason enough for him to end his Parisian sojourn and return
to his native country. He went overland this time, and, to cite his own
words, "For the first time I saw the Rhine; with tears in my eyes I, the
poor artist, swore eternal allegiance to my German fatherland."

It was fortunate in every way that he went to Dresden. His opera
requir