in, and, being angrily received by the king, stammered out that a young gentleman who had just left the room had directed her there. Enraged at this affront, the king ordered him into arrest, but he was begged off by the Duke, and nothing more was done at the time. That the king did not forget his audacity he learnt afterwards to his cost.
As Duke Ludwig's financial position became worse, he was driven to still more questionable expedients. The king having made a decree by which the only persons exempt from military service were the members of the royal household, these appointments were much sought after, and many parents were willing to pay a considerable sum for the reversion of one. It was observed that about this time there was a sudden accession to the Duke's household of young noblemen who bore official titles without any corresponding duties. Just then Weber had been endeavouring to obtain a loan from one of his acquaintances, in order to discharge a debt of his father's, who had been living with him since 1809. On the gentleman's refusal a former servant of his offered Weber to procure it for a consideration, and then assured his late employer that the Secretary, if obliged in the matter of the loan, would secure his son an appointment in the Duke's household. On this understanding the loan was effected; but when no appointment ensued, and the son was drawn for a soldier, the father in his indignation made the affair known. The king had long been dissatisfied with the state of his brother's household, and believing Weber to be the real culprit, determined to make an example of him. The preparations for 'Silvana' were in progress, and Weber was at the theatre, when, on the evening of Feb. 9, 1810, he was arrested and thrown into prison. An enquiry ensued, and Weber's innocence, of which indeed all Stuttgart had been convinced, was completely established; but the king, on Feb. 26, sentenced him and his father to perpetual banishment from Würtemberg. This hard stroke of fate might be looked upon as a punishment for so many frivolous years, and for sins committed against the guiding genius of his art; and it was in this light that Weber took it. Henceforth his youthful follies were laid aside, and he settled down conscientiously and perseveringly to the life of an artist in earnest pursuit after his ideal. 'From this time forward,' he said, eight years afterwards, 'I can count pretty tolerably on having settled matters with myself; and all that time has since done or can do for me, is to rub off corners, and add clearness and comprehensibility to the principles then firmly established.'
Danzi, a real friend in need, gave him introductions to Mannheim, where Peter Ritter was Capellmeister, and Gottfried Weber, afterwards so well-known as a musical theoretician, Conductor of the society called the 'Museum.' Received in a kindly spirit by all, in Gottfried Weber he found a friend for life. Under his auspices concerts were at once arranged for March 9 and April 3, and at these the 'Erster Ton' was produced for the first time, the words being declaimed by the actor Esslair. His first symphony too was a great success, as well as his pianoforte-playing. On a trip to Heidelberg he made the acquaintance of Alexander von Dusch, a brother-in-law of Gottfried Weber, and a cello-player of great taste, who after finishing his studies at Easter, 1810, came to settle in Mannheim. The three friends spent a few happy weeks in lively intellectual intercourse, and in April Weber moved to Darmstadt, where Vogler had been living since 1807. Here he met his friends Gänsbacher and Meyerbeer from Berlin. Weber did not return to the old relations of master and pupil with Vogler, but sought to profit by intercourse with him. His respect for him was undiminished, though he could no longer agree with all that he practised and taught, and was quite aware of the weaknesses of his character. 'May I succeed in placing before the world a clear idea of his rare psychological development, to his honour, and the instruction of young artists!' Weber had the intention of writing a life of Vogler as far back as 1810, and the words just quoted show that he still retained the idea in 1818, though it was never carried out. This was a pity, for his representation of Vogler might perhaps have altered the universally unfavourable verdict of later times. [See Vogler; vol. iv. p. 324, etc.]
On June 21, 1810, Weber undertook a small literary work at Vogler's instigation. Vogler had remodelled some of the Chorales in Breitkopf's second edition (1784 to 86) of J. S. Bach's Chorales, published under Emmanuel Bach's supervision, honestly thinking that Bach was open to great improvement on the score of beauty and correctness. He now begged his former pupil to write a commentary on his revisions, and publish them for the benefit of students. That Weber embarked on the work[1] with any amount of eagerness there is no evidence to show; probably not, his mind being entirely practical and by no means pedagogic. As a matter of fact the analyses were done very perfunctorily, nor were they all his own, for Chorale VII. was done by Gottfried Weber, and part of Chorale IX. and all Chorale X. by Vogler himself.[2] Weber felt his unfitness for the task, and so expressed himself in the introduction. If any part of it interested him it was the comparison of Vogler's supposed systematic and philosophical methods with Bach's mode of proceeding by instinct. He had been long seeking for something on which to ground a system; a fact for which there is a very simple explanation in the uncertainty of his musical instincts, particularly as regards the sequence of harmonies, an ununcertainty arising from his desultory early training, and never wholly overcome. That he
