VOL. LXIX.3 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. SlQ 



taries are little less wild than the native notes of a lark or a black-bird. Nor 

 does he, as yet, seem a subject for instruction : for till his reason is sufficiently 

 matured to comprehend and retain the precepts of a master, and something like 

 a wish for information appears, by a ready and willing obedience to his injunc- 

 tions, the trammels of rule would but disgust, and, if forced upon him, destroy 

 the miraculous parts of his self-taught performance. 



Mr. Baillet published in the last century a book, " Sur les Enfans celebres 

 par leurs etudes ;" and yet, notwithstanding the title of his work, he speaks not 

 of infants but adolescents, for the youngest wonder he celebrates in literature is 

 at least 7 years old ; an age at which several students in music under my own 

 eye have been able to perform difficult compositions on the harpsichord with 

 great neatness and precision. However, this has never been accomplished with- 

 out instructions and laborious practice, not always voluntary. 



Musical prodigies of this kind are not unfrequent : there have been several in 

 Dr. B.'s memory on the harpsichord. About 30 years ago he heard Palschau, a 

 German boy of 9 or 10 years old, then in London, perform with great accuracy 

 many of the most difficult compositions that have ever been written for keyed 

 instruments, particularly some lessons and double fugues by Sebastian Bach, the 

 father of the present eminent professors of that name, which, at that time, 

 there were very few masters in Europe able to execute, as they contained diffi- 

 culties of a particular kind ; such as rapid divisions for each hand in a series of 

 3ds, and in 6ths, ascending and descending, besides those of full harmony and 

 contrivance in nearly as many parts as fingers, such as abound in the lessons and 

 organ fugues of Handel. 



Miss Frederica, now Mrs. Wynne, a little after this time, was remarkable for 

 executing, at 6 years old, a great number of lessons by Scarlatti, Paradies, and 

 others, with the utmost precision. But the 2 sons of the Rev. Mr. Wesley 

 seem to have discovered, during early infancy, very uncommon faculties for the 

 practice of music. Charles, the eldest, at 2\ years old, surprized his father by 

 playing a tune on the harpsichord readily, and in just time : soon after he 

 played several, whatever his mother sung, or whatever he heard in the street. 

 Samuel, the youngest, though he was 3 years old before he aimed at a tune, 

 yet by constantly hearing his brother practise, and being accustomed to good 

 music and masterly execution, before he was 6 years old arrived at such know- 

 ledge in music, that his extemporary performance on keyed instruments, like 

 Mozart's, was so masterly in point of invention, modulation, and accuracy of 

 execution, as to surpass, in many particulars, the attainments of most professors 

 at any period of their lives. Indeed Mozart, when little more than 4 years old, 

 is said to have been '* not only capable of executing lessons on his favourite in- 

 strument, the harpsichord, but to have composed some in an easy style and taste 



