and as soon as he could hold it, put one into his hands, and made him
sit beside him from, morning to night, and practise it. The incessant
drudgery which he compelled him to undergo, and the occasional
starvation to which he subjected him, seriously impaired his health,
and, as Paganini himself asserts, laid the foundation of that
valetudinarian state which has ever since been his portion, and which
his pale, sickly countenance, and his sunk and exhausted frame so
strongly attest. As his enthusiasm was such as to require no artificial
stimulus, this severe system could only have been a piece of cool and
wanton barbarity. He already began to show much promise of excellence,
when a circumstance occurred which not only served to confirm these
early prognostications, but to rouse him to exert all his energies.
This was no other than a dream of his mother, Theresa. An angel appeared
to her; she besought him to make her Nicolo a great violin player; he
gave her a token of consent;--and the effect which this dream had upon
all concerned, we sober-minded people can have no idea of. Young
Paganini redoubled his perseverance. In his eighth year, under the
superintendence of his father, he had written a sonata, which, however,
along with many other juvenile productions, he lately destroyed; and
as he played about three times a week in the churches and at private
musical parties, upon a fiddle nearly as large as himself, he soon began
to make himself known among his townsmen. At this time he received much
benefit from one Francesco Gnecco, who died in 1811, and whom he always
speaks highly of.

In his ninth year, being applied to by a travelling singer to join him
in a concert, he made his first public appearance in the great theatre
at Genoa, and played the French air "La Carmagnole," with his own
variations, with great applause.