Franz Peter Schubert was born in Vienna, January 31, 1797, and died there November 19, 1828. The house in which Schubert was born is now Number 54 in the Nussdorfer Strasse, and the fact is recorded upon a marble tablet over the door. His immediate ancestry were peasants. His father and uncle came from Moravia to Vienna, and were schoolmasters there for many years. His mother, Elizabeth Fitz, before her marriage, was in domestic service as a cook. After her death in 1812 the elder Schubert married Anna Klayenbök. By his first marriage he had fourteen children, of whom Franz was the thirteenth; by the second marriage there were five children, two of whom were living about 1880. The step-mother was an excellent mother to Franz. Two of his elder brothers, Ignaz and Ferdinand, lived and died as schoolmasters, like their father. It seems to have been an admirable family; its members, so far as we know, were noted for conscientious industry and integrity, and were affectionately devoted to one another. It is clear that there was a love for music in the family, though we have few details on this point. Ignaz and Ferdinand were taught the violin by their father. The little Franz began of himself to pick out melodic themes on an old piano much the worse for wear, and thought it a rare treat when a friendly joiner's apprentice used now and then to take him to a piano shop, where he was allowed to try his infant hands upon new and fine instruments. At the age of seven he began to study the violin with his father, and the piano with his brother Ignaz, then aged nineteen; but in a very short time he had got quite beyond these teachers, and was sent to the parish choir-master, Michael Holzer, for instruction in violin, piano, organ, and thorough-bass, as well as in singing. But the astounded Holzer soon found, as he said long afterward, "whenever I wished to teach him anything fresh, he always knew it already." Holzer was fond of giving him themes on which to extemporize, and used to exclaim with rapture that the little fellow "had harmony at his fingers' ends."