sely what he
had been doing, even if he was not self-conscious at the moment of
doing it, that man was Wagner. He stands apart, therefore; apart from
some of the greatest composers. His case, I take it, is analogous to
that of a man who cannot remember a friend's address and thinks of it
that night in a dream: how he chances to dream he cannot tell, but he
knows what he has dreamt, and when.

It is worth insisting on this, partly because it is eminently
characteristic of Wagner, partly because it enables us now to trace
with some certainty the growth of the _Nibelung's Ring_, both drama
and music, from its birth to its final execution. The history of the
building-up of the drama, like the drama itself, is a mightily
complicated and entangled matter. Some of it had to be related earlier
in this book to account, so to say, for the way in which Wagner filled
up his days; but it will be convenient to summarise it here. Let us
begin with a few dates--

1848. Had studied the Nibelungen saga and
sketched the plan of the whole gigantic
work much as it now stands.

1850-51. Discusses _Siegfried's Death_ in letters
to Uhlig and Liszt. Begins the poem in
another form, which he abandons.

1852. Writes the poem for the work practically in
its final form; privately printed the
following year.

1853. Begins _Rhinegold_.

1854. Completes _Rhinegold_.
Begins the _Valkyrie_, and sketches _Siegfried_
at the same time.

1856. Completes _Valkyrie_.
Begins composition of _Siegfried_.
Completes first and begins second act of
_Siegfried_, and interrupts it to start work
on _Tristan_.

1859. _Tristan_ completed.

1867. _Mastersingers_ completed.
Composition of _Siegfried_ resumed.
_Siegfried_ completed.
_Dusk of the Gods_ begun.
_Dusk of the Gods_ completed.

1876. The _Ring_ given at Bayreuth.

Wagner was thus occupied with the _Ring_ for fully twenty-five years.
The _Rhinegold_ followed _Lohengrin_, but there was a gap of five
years between them, mainly devoted to literary work (1848-53); and
during that period his whole style in music underwent a vast change.
In one respect the change is not so marked as that between the
_Rhine__gold_ and the _Valkyrie_; in the first there is little of the
passion, strength, grip and breadth of the others. While composing the
_Rhinegold_ his powers were developing at a prodigious rate, and had
the