the favourite violin of Lord Byron (so it was said), one that had belonged to Stanislaus of Poland, father-in-law of Louis XV., one that had been played upon by Charles IV. of Spain (the enthusiast who had quartet performances at six in the morning, and who scorned to "keep time,") and another, once the property of that monarch's favourite, Don Manuel de Godoy, Duke of Alcudia. All the Paganinis mentioned above were eclipsed by _the_ Paganini (_pace_ Dr. Burney), the artist who stood alone, whose life was full of strange vicissitudes, who was worshipped and calumniated, who was applauded as perhaps never artist was before nor since, yet who was laughed at, hissed--only once--brought before the law-courts--threatened with imprisonment and mobbed within an ace of being lynched. As a child of four, Paganini narrowly escaped being buried alive; from youth up he was a constant sufferer from physical disorders; he had no real home till he was fifty-two; after death his remains were refused burial for five years; and when his body had rested in the grave for half a century it was exhumed, apparently in order that his features might once more be gazed upon. Truly, Paganini's story is a romance, a drama, a tragedy. We may not look upon his like again, nor is it desirable that we should; for his life conveys a moral that few can fail to discern. The artist is the child of his age. What kind of age was it that produced Paganini? A few years before he was born there came into the world one who was to set Europe aflame. The age was the age of revolution. Thrones tottered; armies devastated the Continent, and Italy became a mere appanage of the French Empire. The political upheaval was accompanied by a revolution in art. The romantic school in music arose, and Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner, were the psychic results of the turmoil into which the world was thrown. Into such a world, already feeling the premonitory tremors of the great Revolution, was Nicolo Paganini born, at Genoa, on October 27th, 1782.[1] [Illustration: _Plate II.--See Appendix._ THE BIRTHPLACE OF PAGANINI.]