When Paganini appeared in England, of course there was a prodigious curiosity to see and hear the great player. All kinds of rumors were in the public mouth about him, and many of the lower classes really believed that he had sold himself to the evil one. The capacious area of the opera-house was densely packed, and the prices of admission were doubled on the opening night. The enthusiasm awakened by the performance can best be indicated by quoting from some of the contemporary accounts.

The concert opened with Beethoven's Second Symphony, performed by the Philharmonic Society, and it was followed by Lablache, who sang Rossini's "Largo al factotum." "A breathless silence then ensued," writes Mr. Gardiner, an amateur of Leicester, who at the peril of his ribs had been struggling in the crowd for two hours to get admission, "and every eye watched the action of this extraordinary violinist as he glided from the side scenes to the front of the stage. An involuntary cheering burst from every part of the house, many persons rising from their seats to view the specter during the thunder of this unprecedented applause, his gaunt and extraordinary appearance being more like that of a devotee about to suffer martyrdom than one to delight you with his art. With the tip of his bow he set off the orchestra in a grand military movement with a force and vivacity as surprising as it was new. At the termination of this introduction, he commenced with a soft, streamy note of celestial quality, and with three or four whips of his bow elicited points of sound that mounted to the third heaven, and as bright as stars.... Immediately an execution followed which was equally indescribable. A scream of astonishment and delight burst from the audience at the novelty of this effect.... etc." This naive account may serve to show the impression created on the minds of those not trained to guard their words with moderation.

"Nothing can be more intense in feeling," said a contemporary critic, "than his conception and delivery of an adagio passage. His tone is, perhaps, not quite so full and round as that of a De Bériot or Baillot, for example; it is delicate rather than strong, but this delicacy was probably never possessed equally by another player." "There is no trick in his playing," writes another critic; "it is all fair scientific execution, opening to us a new order of sounds.... All his passages seem free and unpremeditated, as if conceived on the instant. One has no impression of their having cost him either forethought or labor.... The word difficulty has no place in his vocabulary.... etc." Paganini's lengthened tour through London and the provinces was everywhere attended with the same success, and brought him in a golden harvest, for his reputation had now grown so portentous that he could exact the greatest terms from managers.

Paganini avowed himself as not altogether pleased with England, but, under the surface of such complaints as the following, one detects the ring of gratified vanity. He writes in a MS. letter, dated from London in 1831, of the excessive and noisy admiration to which he was subjected in the London streets, which left him no peace, and actually blocked his passage to and from the theatre. "Although the public curiosity to see me," says he, "is long since satisfied; though I have played in public at least thirty times, and my likeness has been reproduced in all possible styles and forms, yet I can never leave my home without being mobbed by people who are not content with following and jostling me, but actually get in front of me, and prevent my going either way, address me in English of which I don't know a word, and even feel me as if to find out if I am made of flesh and blood. And this is not only among the common people, but among the upper classes." Paganini repeated his visit to England during the next season, playing his final farewell concert at the Victoria Theatre, London, June 17, 1832. The two following years our artist lived in Paris, and was the great lion of musical and social circles. People professed to be as much charmed with his lack of pretension, his naive and simple manners, as with his musical genius. Yet no man was more exacting of his rights as an artist. One day a court concert was announced at the Tuilleries, at which Paganini was asked to play. He consented, and went to examine the room the day before. He objected to the numerous curtains, so hung as to deaden the sound, and requested the superintendent to see that they were changed. The supercilious official ignored the artist's wish, and the offended Paganini determined not to play. When the hour of the concert arrived, there was no violinist. The royalties and their attendants were all seated; murmurs arose, but still no Paganini. At last an official was sent to the hotel of the artist, only to be informed that the great violinist had not gone out, but that he went to bed very early. It was during his residence in Paris in the winter of 1834 that he proposed to Berlioz, for whom he had the most cordial esteem and admiration, to write a concerto for his Stradiuarius violin, which resulted in the famous symphony "Harold en Italie." Four years after this he bestowed the sum of twenty thousand francs on Berlioz, who was then in pressing need, delicately disguising the donation as a testimonial of his admiration for the "Symphonie Fantastique." Though the eagerness of Paganini to make money urged him to labor for years while his health was exceedingly frail, and though he was justly stigmatized as penurious in many ways, he was capable of princely generosity on occasions which appealed strongly to the ardent sympathies which lay at the bottom of his nature.

Paganini made a great fortune by the exercise of his art, and in 1834 purchased, among other property in his native country, a charming country seat called Villa Gajona, near Parma. Here he spent two years in comparative quiet, though still continuing to give concerts. At this period and for some time previous many music-sellers had striven to buy the copyright of his works. But Paganini put a price on it which was prescriptive, the probability being that he did not wish his compositions to pass out of his hands till he had given up his career on the concert stage. He was willing that they should be arranged for the piano, but not published as violin music.

After his return to Italy Paganini gave several most successful concerts, among others, one for the poor at Placentia, on the 14th of November, 1834, and another at the court of the Duchess of Parma, in the December following. But his health was already giving way most visibly. Phthisis of the larynx, which rendered him a mere shadow of his former self, and sometimes almost deprived him of speech, had been gaining ground since his return to his native climate. In 1836, however, he was better, and some unscrupulous Parisian speculators induced him to lend his name to a joint-stock undertaking, a sort of gambling-room and concert-hall, which they called the Casino Paganini. This was duly opened in a fashionable part of Paris in 1837; but, as the Government would not allow the establishment to be used as a gambling-house, and the concerts did not pay the expenses, it became a great failure, and the illustrious artist actually suffered loss by it to the extent of forty thousand francs.

One of his last, if not his very last, concert was given with the guitar-player, Signor Legnani, at Turin, on the 9th of June, 1837, for the benefit of the poor. He was then on his way to fulfill his engagements at the fatal Parisian casino, which opened with much splendor in the November following. But his health had again broken down, and the fatigue of the journey had told upon him so much that he was unable to appear at the casino. When the enterprise was found to be a failure, a pettifogging lawsuit was carried on against him, and, according to Fetis, who is very explicit on this subject, the French judges condemned him to pay the aforesaid forty thousand francs, and to be deprived of his liberty until that amount was paid-all this without hearing his defense!

The career of Paganini was at this critical period fast drawing to a close. His medical advisers recommended him to return at once to the South, fearing that the winter would kill him in Paris. He died at Nice on May 27, 1840, aged fifty-six years. He left to his legitimized son Achille, the offspring of his liaison with the singer Antonia Bianchi, a fortune of eighty thousand pounds, and the title of baron, of which he had received the patent in Germany. His beautiful Guarnerius violin, the vehicle of so many splendid artistic triumphs, he bequeathed to the town of Genoa, where he was born. Though Paganini was superstitious, and died a son of Holy Church, he did not leave any money in religious bequests, nor did he even receive the last sacraments. The authorities of Rome raised many difficulties about the funeral, and it was only after an enormous amount of trouble and expense that Achille was able to have a solemn service to the memory of his father performed at Parma. It was five years after Paganini's death that this occurred, and permission was obtained to have the body removed to holy ground in the village churchyard near the Villa Gajona. During this long period the dishonored remains of the illustrious musician were at the hospital of Nice, where the body had been embalmed, and afterward at a country place near Genoa, belonging to the family. The superstitious peasantry believed that strange noises were heard about the grave at night-the wailings of the unsatisfied spirit of Paganini over the unsanctified burial of its earthly shell. It was to end these painful stories that the young baron made a final determined effort to placate the ecclesiastical authorities.

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