certainly my best, and I still call it the 'Devil's Sonata,' but this composition is so far beneath the one I heard in my dream, that I would have broken my violin and given up music altogether, had I been able to live without it." The Paris Conservatory Library owns the manuscript of the "Devil's Sonata," which was published many years later (in 1805), under the title of "Il Trillo del Diavolo." This sonata has become one of the show-pieces of leading violinists, such as Joachim, Laub, and others. One writer speaks of it as a "piece in which a series of double shakes, and the satanic laugh with which it concludes, are so dear to lovers of descriptive music." Its title alone almost ensures its success beforehand. The listener is, however, less impressed by the hidden diabolical inspiration than by the wonderful technic. [Illustration: Tartini's Dream. From painting by James Marshall.] Strange to say, this composition actually aided Tartini to obtain the position of director of the orchestra in the Church of St. Antony at Padua, in 1721. Before this time, however, he heard in Venice the famous violinist Veracini, whose achievements in bowing impressed Tartini so much, that he left Venice the next morning for Ancona, where he pursued the study of his art, unmolested, for seven years. It was here that he created a new method of playing, which, particularly as regards the bowing, was the one followed for half a century. Let us, however, return to Tartini at Assisi, and tell how an unforeseen incident at last freed the young artist from his hiding-place and gave him back to his family. On a certain holiday, Tartini was playing a violin solo, during services, in the choir of the church, when a sudden gust of wind blew aside the curtains which had concealed him from the assembly. A man from Padua, who happened to be in the church at the time, recognised Tartini, and betrayed his hiding-place. Circumstances had fortunately changed in the course of two years, the anger of the bishop was pacified, and Tartini was allowed to return to his wife at Padua. In the year 1723 he was called to Prague to perform during the festivities at the coronation of the Emperor Charles VI. He went with his friend, the violoncellist, Antonio Nardini, to Prague, where they both accepted a position in the orchestra of Count Kinsky. After three years in this service, they returned to Padua, which city Tartini never left again. Invitations flowed in from all the great capitals, but no terms tempted him to leave his native soil.