GENIUS AND PRECOCITY. 473 



I have here selected some of the more striking instances of musical 

 precocity. But the question still remains, What proportion of emi- 

 nent musicians showed marked taste and ability as children ? In order 

 to answer this question I have gone through forty names. Of these 

 I find that thirty-eight displayed a decided bent to the art before 

 twenty. This is expressly stated in most cases, and in the rest is 

 clearly inferred from the date of study, or of the first musical compo- 

 sition. The two excepted names are those of Palestrina and Tartini. 

 Of the early life of the former little is known ; but it is fairly infer- 

 able that he took up music in his youth. Tartini is the only instance 

 I have met with of a first impulse to music showing itself after 

 twenty. He is said to have first taken up the violin to relieve the 

 monotony of cloister-life. But the story has a suspicious touch of ro- 

 mance about it. 



Of the thirty-eight who were precocious to the extent just defined, 

 I have ascertained that twenty-nine are said to have shown a musical 

 gift as children. There is some reason to suppose that others betrayed 

 musical skill toward the end of childhood (about twelve). So far as I 

 can discover, only in the case of two of the nine exceptions is there 

 reason to conclude that there was no marked manifestation of ability 

 in childhood. These are (an odd juxtaposition) Rossini and Wagner. 

 The former, says Brendel, though early subjected to musical discipline 

 by his parents, themselves musicians, showed himself at first indocile 

 and disinclined (abhold) to the art. Only in his seventeenth year does 

 this distaste appear to have given way to genuine devotion. R. Wag- 

 ner tells us that as a child he was not specially attracted to music, and 

 that it was only when, at the age of fifteen, he made the acquaintance 

 of Beethoven's symphonies, that he became inspired by a strong and 

 overpowering passion for the art. 



The date of a first musical composition is less easily obtainable 

 than that of a first literary publication. I have managed to ascertain 

 it in twenty-seven instances. Out of these, ten began to compose be- 

 fore the age of fifteen, fourteen more between fifteen and twenty, and 

 only three after twenty. 



If, now, we go on to examine into the age at which musical com- 

 posers gave a distinct pledge of their greatness by a work of undoubted 

 excellence, or at least of such merit as to win public recognition, we 

 find much greater diversity. In some cases of early production the 

 quality of the work was striking in itself and apart from the age in 

 which it was produced. This applies to some of the most marvelous 

 instances of precocity. Thus, Mozart, after gaining renown as a won- 

 der-child by his symphonies, sonatas, etc., proceeded rapidly to lay the 

 foundations of a lasting fame by operatic compositions. At the age of 

 fourteen he acquired great popularity in Italy as an opera-writer, and 

 by his nineteenth year had struck out his own original line in the 

 opera, "La bella finta giardiniera." Mendelssohn was no less agile in 



