Your merry festals please him more
Than gloomy laws or legal lore.

Friedrich, with his freshly affianced wife, Marianne, must lead the procession, followed by Luzio and the novice, who is for ever lost to the convent.

These spirited and, in many respects, boldly devised scenes I had clothed in suitable language and carefully written verse, which had already been noticed by Laube.  The police at first took exception to the title of the work, which, had I not changed it, would have led to the complete failure of my plans for its presentation.  It was the week before Easter, and the theatre was consequently forbidden to produce jolly, or at least frivolous, plays during this period.  Luckily the magistrate, with whom I had to treat concerning the matter, did not show any inclination to examine the libretto himself; and when I assured him that it was modelled upon a very serious play of Shakespeare’s, the authorities contented themselves merely with changing the somewhat startling title.  Die Novize van Palermo, which was the new title, had nothing suspicious about it, and was therefore approved as correct without further scruple.  I fared quite otherwise in Leipzig, where I attempted to introduce this work in the place of my Feen, when the latter was withdrawn.  The director, Ringelhardt, whom I sought to win over to my cause by assigning the part of Marianne to his daughter, then making her debut in opera, chose to reject my work on the apparently very reasonable grounds that the tendency of the theme displeased him.  He assured me that, even if the Leipzig magistrates had consented to its production—­a fact concerning which his high esteem for that body led him to have serious doubts—­he himself, as a conscientious father, could certainly not permit his daughter to take part in it.

Strange to say, I suffered nothing from the suspicious nature of the libretto of my opera on the occasion of its production in Magdeburg; for, as I have said, thanks to the unintelligible manner in which it was produced, the story remained a complete mystery to the public.  This circumstance, and the fact that no opposition had been raised on the ground of its tendency, made a second performance possible, and as nobody seemed to care one way or the other, no objections were raised.  Feeling sure that my opera had made no impression, and had left the public completely undecided about its merits, I reckoned that, in view of this being the farewell performance of our opera company, we should have good, not to say large, takings.  Consequently I did not hesitate to charge ‘full’ prices for admittance.  I cannot rightly judge whether, up to the commencement of the overture, any people had taken their places in the auditorium; but about a quarter of an hour before the time fixed for beginning, I saw only Mme. Gottschalk and her husband, and, curiously enough, a Polish Jew in full dress, seated in the stalls.  Despite this, I was still hoping for an increase in