Instances of precocity among musicians of genius are by no means rare. But for precocity of the highest order, as well as for spontaneous exuberance of musical originality, Schubert has probably been equalled by none save Mozart. The world is familiar with the stories of Mozart found by his father in the act of scrawling a piano concerto at four years of age, and of his composing a symphony for full orchestra at eight. A piano sonata in D major for four hands, which he wrote in his ninth year, is still very commonly played, and is astonishing for its maturity of thought and its complete mastery of the sonata form. There is no evidence of the beginning of such work on Schubert's part at such an early age. His fantasia for four hands was written when he was thirteen years old, and his first recorded song, "Hagar's Lament," in the following year; but there is reason for believing that he had before that time composed songs, pieces for piano, and string quartettes. Before completing his eleventh year he had come to be leading soprano singer and violin player in the choir at the parish church of Lichtenthal, in Vienna. The next year he obtained a situation as chorister in the Emperor's Chapel, and became a pupil in the Imperial school known as the "Convict," a name derived not from _convincere_, but from _convivere_, and implying that the members or "convictors" were "messmates." It was but scant conviviality that was allowed by the ignorant parsimony with which that somewhat famous institution was managed. Those poor growing boys, with the wolfish appetites belonging to their time of life, had but two wretched meals daily and more than eight hours apart, while in the winter season their benumbed fingers shrank from contact with the ice-like key-boards. How often some promising lad may have succumbed to such a regimen, while his death was piously ascribed to Providence, we are not informed. That the effect upon Schubert's constitution was deleterious may readily be believed. In one of the earliest of his letters that have been preserved, dated November 24, 1812, we find him beseeching his brother for a few kreutzers wherewith to get now and then a roll or some apples to keep off starvation during the long exercises in the freezing schoolroom.