a seal on which "the most great name of God
was engraved."

13. _And one would bury his brow._ This description of the foundations
of the palace is not unlike Milton's account of the work of the fallen
angels in building the palace in hell. (_Paradise Lost_, I, 170.) That
"fabric huge" was as magical in its construction as the palace of Abt
Vogler, for, though it was not built by music, it

"Rose like an exhalation with the sound
Of Dulcet Symphonies and voices sweet."

16. _Nether Springs._ Remotest origins.

23. _Rome's dome._ The illumination of St. Peter's was formerly one of
the customary spectacles on the evening of Easter Sunday. "At Ave-Maria
we drove to Piazza of St. Peter's. The lighting of the lanternoni, or
large paper lanterns, each of which looks like a globe of ethereal fire,
had been going on for an hour, and by the time we arrived there was
nearly completed.... The whole of this immense church--its columns,
capitals, cornices, and pediments--the beautiful swell of the lofty dome
... all were designed in lines of fire, and the vast sweep of the
circling colonnades ... was resplendent with the same beautiful light."
(C. A. Eaton, _Rome in the Nineteenth Century_, II, 208.)

23. _Space to spire._ From the wide opening between the colonnades to
the cross on the top of the lantern surmounting the dome.

34. _Protoplast._ Used apparently for protoplasm, a substance
constituting the physical basis of life in all plants and animals.

39. Into his musical palace came the wonderful Dead in a glorified form,
and also Presences fresh from the Protoplast, while, for the moment, he
himself in the ardor of musical creation felt himself raised to the
level of these exalted ones.

53. _Consider it well._ On the mystery of musical creation and on its
permanence see Cardinal Newman's sermon on "The Theory of Development in
Christian Doctrine." (Quoted in part, in Berdoe's _Browning
Cyclopaedia_.)

57. _Palace of music._ Cf. the description of the glowing banquet-room
in Keats's "Lamia":

"A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone
Supportress of the faery-roof, made moan
Throughout, as fearful the whole charm might perish."

The damsel with the dulcimer in Coleridge's "Kubla Khan" sings of Mount
Abora, and the poet says:

"Could I revive within me
Her sympathy and song
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That