The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1873-04-10
PAGANINI.
sketch of his Life and Char
aCter,

Paganini's father may have been Il
street porter, as some pretend, or a
small tradesman, us others, probably in
the right, affirm. He was a sharp man
he was cruel man he did overmuch to
develop his sons talents, and overmuch
to ruin his health, and, probably, is
chargeable with having destroyed his
mental and moral equilibrium for life.
Nicolo's mother was n sweet, amiable
woman she loved her boy, she believed
in him, she often stood between him
and the rod, she prayed for him, and
saw one night in vision celestial be-
ing, who told her that the boy would
become the greatest violinist that ever
lived. How far this dream, which she
lost no time i'll communicating to father
and son. increased the fathers severity
and fired the boys ambition, we cannot
tell; but the dream seems to have been
established fact, and years after
ward, when the mother was old, and the
son at his zenith. she reminded him OF
it, Us of an incident which had been fa-
miliar to both of them throughout their
lives.
Ia these early days of boyhood were
probably laid the seeds of that idiosyn-
Grassy Of temperament which became at
once the glory and curse of his life.
Little as we know about the human
brain, it is tolerably certain that its
particles move in physical grooves and
acquire methodical arrangements, which
correspond to what we call mental quail
tiles and states of mind. Illness may
perpetuate some, and modify others.
Great severity may have a similar effect;
recurrent outward action, for instance,
may create intense propensity in certain
directions, and thus impart the perse-
verance of mania to inward dispositions;
the nervous system at the same time, if
it does not break down, becomes over
developed, and is then endowed with an
almost supernatural sensibility. Some
thing of this kind appears to have been
the case with Paganini; he was by ma
ture very delicate. At four years of
age he was nearly buried alive, he lay
whole day in state of catalepsy, and
was already placed i'll his shroud, when
he revived, but with a nervous system
which from that time forward showed
signs of strange and unnatural suscep-
tibility. By his own temperament, rs
soon as he could hold the violin he was
urged to an intense and dangerous ap-
plication-for the least fault he was Sc
verely beaten by his father, which SEEM
ed only to increase an ardOr which
should, for his own sake, have been
rather moderated. Precocity. was still
further forced on by starvation. Had
it not been for his mother he might
never have survived this brutal treat
ment.
Paganini was born at Genoa on the
18th of February, 1774. After exhaust
ing his fathers instruction, he was taken
in hand by Signor Servetto of the Ge-
noese theater; then Giacomo Costa,
chapel master, taught him, and the
child was often seen playing in the Ge-
noese churches on a violin almost as
large as himself; but, like Mozart be-
fore him, and Mendelssohn after him,
Nicolo was the despair of his masters,
who were in turn angry with his inno-
vations, and astonished at his precocious
facility. In his ninth year he appeared
at a concert, and electrified every one
with variations on a well known French
air. This triumph compelled his ava
ricious father to discover some one who
could further teach him; the young tai
ent was to be pressed and squeezed to
it's utmost limit, in order to produce the
golden harvest. !