still a young man, by helping his father in these and similar undertakings, had gained practical experience as a musician.  As his father’s business had for some time even extended to England, August had won practical knowledge of all sorts by contact with many men and things, and in addition had learned French and English.  But music had remained his chosen vocation, and his great natural talent justified the highest hopes of success.  He was an excellent pianist, read scores with the utmost ease, possessed an exceptionally fine ear, and had indeed every qualification for a practical musician.  As a composer he was actuated, not so much by a strong impulse to create, as the desire to show what he was capable of; the success at which he aimed was to gain the reputation of a clever operatic composer rather than recognition as a distinguished musician, and he hoped to obtain his end by the production of popular works.  Actuated by this modest ambition he had completed an opera, Farinelli, for which he had also written the libretto, with no other aspiration than that of attaining the same reputation as his brother-in-law Lortzing.

He brought this score to me, and begged me—­it was his first visit before he had heard one of my operas in Dresden—­to play him something from Rienzi and the Fliegender Hollander.  His frank, agreeable personality induced me to try and meet his wishes as far as I could; and I am convinced that I soon made such a great and unexpectedly powerful impression on him that from that moment he determined not to bother me further with the score of his opera.  It was not until we had become more intimate and had discovered mutual personal interests, that the desire of turning his work to account induced him to ask me to show my practical friendship by turning my attention to his score.  I made various suggestions as to how it might be improved, but he was soon so hopelessly disgusted with his own work that he put it absolutely aside, and never again felt seriously moved to undertake a similar task.  On making a closer acquaintance with my completed operas and plans for new works, he declared to me that he felt it his vocation to play the part of spectator, to be my faithful helper and the interpreter of my new ideas, and, as far as in him lay, to remove entirely, and at all events to relieve me as far as possible from, all the unpleasantnesses of my official position and of my dealings with the outside world.  He wished, he said, to avoid placing himself in the ridiculous position of composing operas of his own while living on terms of close friendship with me.

Nevertheless, I tried to urge him to turn his own talent to account, and to this end called his attention to several plots which I wished him to work out.  Among these was the idea contained in a small French drama entitled Cromwell’s Daughter, which was subsequently used as the subject for a sentimental pastoral romance, and for the elaboration of which I presented him with an exhaustive plan.