For the next two years Paganini was constantly travelling, and in the year 1823 we have the first glimpse of him through the medium of an English musical journal.[11] This first reference is quite incidental. Giuseppe Rastrelli was playing in Naples in 1822 (or 1823), and was well received, "although his predecessor, the celebrated Paganini," was still fresh in the public remembrance. This assumes that Paganini was well known to English readers. He had indeed been mentioned in books published before this date. On his way to Pavia in 1823, Paganini was attacked with illness, and his life was despaired of. At that time he had again intended going to Austria, but a long rest was needed to restore his health. This repose he enjoyed at Genoa, and recovered sufficiently to give two concerts in the _Teatro da Sant'Agostino_, in 1824. The second concert introduced two youthful claimants to public favour. The first was a Signora Bianchi, under twenty years of age, who was characterised in the bills as the little _virtuosa forestiera_, and who sang three airs; the other was a Signora Barette, who played a _Pezzo Cantabile_ and a _Sonatina_ upon the violoncello. They both experienced a flattering reception.[12] The young violoncellist was not more than fourteen years old, and there is no reason to suppose that she was the first of her sex to appear in public as a violoncellist. The other "little guest" or stranger was to play an important part in Paganini's history. This concert afforded another proof of Paganini's power of attraction. A certain M. Bergman, a (Swedish?) traveller and passionate lover of music, reading accidentally the evening before in the journal at Leghorn, an announcement of Paganini's concert, lost no time, but instantly set out for Genoa, a distance of a hundred miles, and luckily reached the spot just half an hour before the concert began. He went with his expectations raised to the utmost, but, to use his own expression, the reality was as far above his anticipations as the heavens are above the earth. Nor could this enthusiastic amateur rest content with once hearing Paganini, but actually followed him to Milan, in order to hear him exercise his talents a second time. Now-a-days the enthusiasts are young ladies, who mob their favourites in the artists' room! In 1824 Paganini gave two concerts in _La Scala_, Milan, which was crowded to excess. At the first he played a concerto, and three airs with variations--all on the fourth string, so said the report. A surfeit, this, even for his fervent admirers. In the same year at Pavia, he gave two concerts, the bills being headed: PAGANINI _Farà sentire il suo Violino._