[ =98 ] 



could find no fault in it; adding, " There was not another boy 

 ** upon earth who could have compofed this ;." and concluding 

 with, " I never yet met with that perfon who owes fb much to 

 *f nature as Sam. He is come among us dropt down from 

 ** heaven." 



Ore puer, puerrque habitu, fed corde fagaci, 

 j£,quabat Jenium. 



Silius Italicus, L. viii. 



I firft had an opportunity of being witnefs of Mailer Samuel* 

 Wefley's great mufical talents at the latter end of 1775,, when he 

 was nearly ten years old. 



To fpeak of him firft as a performer on the harpfichord, he was- 

 then able to execute the moft difficult leffons for the inftrument 

 at fight, for his fingers never wanted the guidance of the eye in 

 the moft rapid and defultory paffages. But he not only did ample 

 juftice to the compofition in neatnefs and precifion, but entered 

 into its true tafte, which may be eafily believed by the numbers 

 wlio have heard him play extemporary leflbns in the ftile of moft 

 of the eminent mafters. 



He not only executed crabbed compositions thus at fight, but 

 was equally ready to tranfpofe into any keys, even a fourth f ; 

 and if it was a Sonata for two trebles and a bafe, the part of the 



f Moft muficians, when they tranfpofe, conceive the fucceffion of notes 

 to be written in a eleff in which they have been ufed to pradtife, as the 

 bafe clefF, tenor cleff, &c. but the tranfpofition of a 4th belongs to no 

 cleff, except that which the Italians term the Mezzo Soprano, or an inter- 

 mediate cieff, between the treble and counter tenor, and which, not being 

 ever marked in our compofitions, cannot be fancied by an Englilh per- 

 former when he is obliged to tranfpofe a fourth. 



firft 



