194 /)r. burney’s Account of 
“ to hear him, and the mufical people are all amaze- 
“ ment'X” 
The child being but two years and eight months old 
when this letter was written, his performance mull 
have appeared confiderably more wonderful than 
at prefent: for as he feems to have received fcarce 
any inft ructions, and to have purfued no regular courfe 
of ftudy or practice fince that time, it can hardly be 
imagined that he is much improved. However, ex- 
perience muft have informed him what feries or combi- 
nation of founds was molt offenlive to his ear ; but fuch 
is his impetuolity that he never dwells long on any note 
or chord, and indeed his performance muft originally 
have been as much under the guidance of the eye as the 
ear, for when his hand unfortunately falls upon wrong 
notes, the ear cannot judge till it is too late to correct the 
miftake. However, habit, and perhaps the delicacy and 
acutenefs of another fenfe, that of feeling, now direct 
him to the keys which he prefles down, as he hardly 
ever looks at them. 
(b) His father, who has lately been in London, and with whom I have con- 
verfed fince this account was drawn up, all the particulars of which he has con- 
firmed, told me, that when he firft carried the child to the cathedral he ufed to 
cry the infiant he heard the loud organ, which* being fo much more powerful 
than that to which he had been accuftomed at home, he was fome time before he 
could bear without difcovering pain, .occafioned, perhaps, by the extreme deli- 
cacy of his ear, and irritability of his nerves. 
I 
The 
