In 1824 Moscheles, at that time a celebrated pianist, and residing in London, visited Berlin, and was asked to give Felix music-lessons. This is the testimony of Moscheles, an excellent and kind-hearted man, and a thoroughly skilled musician, after spending nearly every day for six weeks with the family: "It is a family such as I have never known before; Felix, a mature artist, and yet but fifteen; Fanny, extraordinarily gifted, playing Bach's fugues by heart and with astonishing correctness--in fact, a thorough musician. The parents give me the impression of people of the highest cultivation;" and on the subject of lessons he says: "Felix has no need of lessons; if he wishes to take a hint from me as to anything new, he can easily do so." But it is very pleasant to find Mendelssohn afterward referring to these lessons as having urged him on to enthusiasm, and, in the days in London when his own fame had far outstripped that of the older musician, acknowledging himself as "Moscheles's pupil." The elder Mendelssohn was by no means carried away by the applause which the boy's playing and compositions had gained, and in 1825 he took his son to Paris to obtain Cherubini's opinion as to his musical abilities, with a view to the choice of a profession; for he had by no means made up his mind that Felix should spend his whole life as a musician. However, the surly old Florentine, who was not always civil or appreciative of budding genius (_teste_ Berlioz), gave a decidedly favorable judgment on the compositions submitted to him, and urged the father to devote his son to a musical career. And, indeed, on listening to the pieces which were dated this year, especially a beautiful quartet in B minor, an octet for strings, the music to an opera in two acts, "Camacho's Wedding," and numerous pianoforte pieces, it is difficult to realize that the composer was then only sixteen years of age, or that anyone could question the artistic vocation that claimed him. But the next year a work was written, the score of which is marked "Berlin, August 6, 1826," when it must be remembered that he was seventeen years of age, which of itself was sufficient to rank him among the immortals--the overture to the "Midsummer Night's Dream." Full of lovely imaginings, with a wonderful fairy grace all its own, and a bewitching beauty, revealing not only the soul of the true poet, but also the musician profoundly skilled in all the art of orchestral effect, it is hard to believe that it is the work of a boy under twenty, written in the bright summer days of 1826, in his father's garden at Berlin.