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which his half-brother was valet-de-chambre. father had refused to let young Handel accompany him, but he followed the chaise on foot, and by his entreaties was taken into the chaise and carried to court. Here, playing one day on the organ in the church after the service was over, he attracted the notice of the duke, who induced the father to suffer him to study music. At the age of nine years, he began to compose the church service for voices and instruments, and from that time actually composed a service every week, for three years, successively. When only fourteen he went to Berlin, when Buononcini, a leading composer attached to the Opera, affected a contempt for so mere a child as Handel; and to put his talents to the test, composed a cantata in the chromatic style difficult in every respect, and such as he thought would puzzle even a master; but Handel treated the composition as a trifle, and executed it at once with a truth and accuracy that was astonishing. Before he had reached his fifteenth year, Handel had composed three operas; the first, Almeria, which was performed at Hamburgh thirty nights successively; Florinda, and Nerone, the other two, were equally successful. He now, by his talents and industry, was enabled to yield some assistance to his mother, who was left a widow. By the persuasions of the Prince of Tuscany, he was induced to go to Florence, where he was received with the most marked attention by the court. Here, when still only eighteen years of age, he composed the opera of Rodrigo, for which he received one hundred sequins, and a service of plate. The following year he went to Venice, where he was first discovered at

a masquerade, while playing on an harpsichord in his visor. Scarlatri was there, and affirmed, "it was either the little Saxon, or the devil." While at Venice, he composed, in three weeks, the opera of Agrippina, which was played twenty-seven nights without interruption. The theatre, almost at every pause, resounded with shouts and acclamations of Vive il caro Sassone. Such was the early success of this immortal composer, who died possessed of an ample fortune, acquired solely by his talents.

HAYDN.

Like Mozart, Haydn gave strong manifestations of his taste for music, even in infancy. His father, who had some knowledge of music, used to play the harp to his wife's singing, while the infant Haydn imitated a violin and bow with two pieces of wood, and thus took part in this quiet family concert. When of sufficient age, he was placed among the choir boys in the Cathedral of Vienna. His duties as a singer occupied only two hours in the day, but Haydn practised in general sixteen, and sometimes eighteen hours. He was wont to speak in rapturous terms of the delight he received from the combinations of sound; even when he was playing with his companions, he was never able to resist the harmony of the organ in the cathedral. Haydn now began to think of composition, but could not obtain lessons from any of the able professors of Vienna. He was thus thrown on his own resources, yet still despaired not. He bought an old treatise on harmony at a stall; and devoting himself to the study of it with all

the zeal of genius, speedily acquired a mastery of the principles of the art, and ere long became one of its brightest ornaments.

MOZART.

The accounts of this admirable composer's early proficiency in music are almost incredible. He began the piano at three years of age; his first delight was almost scientific; he used to spend his first hours in looking for thirds, and felt charmed with their harmony. At five years old, he began to invent little pieces of such ingenuity, that his father used to write them down. He was a creature of universal sensibility; a natural enthusiast; from his infancy fond, melancholy, and tearful. When scarcely able to walk, his first question to friends who took him on their knee was, whether they loved him, and a negative always made him weep. His mind wass all alive; and whatever touched it, made it palpitate throughout. When he was taught the rudiments of arithmetic, the walls and tables of his bed-chambers were found covered with figures. But the piano was the grand object of his devotion. At six years old this singular child commenced with his father and sister (two years older than himself) one of those musical tours common in Germany, and performed at Munich before the Elector, to the great admiration of the most musical court on the contininent. His ear now signalized

itself by detectiug the most minute irregularities in the orchestra; but its refinement was almost a disease a discord tortured him; he conceived a horror of the trumpet, except as a simple accompaniment; and

suffered from it so keenly, that his father, to correct what he looked on as the effect of ignorant terror, one day desired a trumpet to be blown in his apartment. The child entreated him not to make the experiment; but the trumpet sounded. Mozart suddenly turned pale, fell on the floor, and was going into convulsions, when the trumpeter was sent out of the room.

When only seven years old he taught himself the violin and thus, by the united effort of genius and industry, mastered the most difficult of all instruments. From Munich he went to Vienna, Paris, and London. His reception in the British metropolis was such as the curious give to novelty, the scientific to intelligence, and the great to what administers to stately pleasure. He was flattered, honoured, and rewarded. Handel had then made the organ popular, and Mozart took the way of popularity. His execution, which, on the piano, had astonished the English musicians, was, on the organ, brought in aid of his genius, and he overcame all rivalry. On his departure from England, he gave a farewell concert, of which all the symphonies were composed by himself. This was the career of a child nine years old! With the strengthening of his frame, the acuteness of his ear became less painful; the trumpet had lost its terrors for him at ten years old; and before he had completed that period, he distinguished the dedication of the Church of the Orphans at Vienna by the composition of a mass, motets, and a trumpet duet; and acted as director of the concert. This detail of years is minute; but who will object to reckoning the steps by which genius climbs to fame? Mozart had now traversed the great kingdoms of the earth, and

seen all that could be shown to him of European wealth and regal grandeur. He had yet to see the kingdom of European genius. Italy was an untried land, and he went at once to its capital. He was present at the Miserere, which seems to have been then performed with an effect unequalled since. The singers had been forbidden to give a copy of the score. Mozart bore it away in his memory, and wrote it down. This is still quoted among musicians as a miracle of remembrance; but it may be more truly quoted as an evidence of the power which diligence and determination give to the the mind. Mozart was not remarkable for memory; what he did, all men may do: but the same triumph is to be purchased only by the same exertion. The impression of this day lasted during life; his style was changed; he at once adopted a solemn reverence for Handel, whom he called "The Thunderbolt," and softened the fury of his inspiration by the taste of Boccherini. He now made a grand advance in his profession, and composed an opera, "Mithridates," which was played twenty nights at Milan.

HEROISM AND AFFECTION.

In January, 1760, some gentlemen, who had been out shooting, on their return to Stirling, shot a bird, near the bridge which fell upon a sheet of ice in the river, a short distance from the bank. Two boys, one sixteen and the other fourteen years of age, saw the bird fall, and the eldest attempted to get it, but the ice broke under him, and he went to the bottom before he had time to implore the assistance of his com

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