In this prosaic, materialistic twentieth century, which believes in little besides money, there is no fear of any of our violin wonders being associated with the arch-fiend. They may be regarded as physic problems, but the supernatural is eliminated from the study. But Paganini did not live in the twentieth century, and in his day the devil was a very real personage, notwithstanding the temporary overthrow of much belief through the French Revolution, and the enthronement of the "Goddess of Reason" in the Church of Notre Dame, Paris. It may seem absurd, now, even to recall these calumnies; but we have to deal with the environment of a great genius, to study the cause of his failing to become great as a man; for surely he had the making of a fine character. That he should traverse the greater part of Europe, pursued by tales of devilry and murder, is one of the saddest comments on that period; that the "iron entered into his soul," and the man capable of affection became a miser and a misanthrope, is more mournful still. He was the "Flying Dutchman" of the violin. How was it that the devil and the violin came into relationship? We have it on the authority of Martin Luther that the devil hates music. Luther not only believed in the devil, but he fancied he saw him: and in the room of the Castle of Wartburg may still be seen the mark on the wall, where he threw his inkpot at the fiend, who tried to thwart his work of translating the Bible. It is curious that the only instrument which, to the present writer's knowledge, Satan has been represented as playing upon, is one of the precursors of the violin. There is a piece of sculpture in the Cathedral of Amiens, depicting Satan playing on an oval three-stringed Vielle, of the thirteenth century.[34] The story of Tartini and his dream, when the devil played so marvellously on the violin, is known to everyone, and is, moreover, perpetuated in the sonata _Il Trillo del Diavolo_. It is related of Thomas Baltzar, the first great violinist ever heard in England, that when he played at Oxford he astonished everyone by "running up his fingers to the end of the finger-board." John Wilson, the Oxford Professor of Music, "the greatest judge of musick that ever was," according to Anthony à Wood, "did, after his humoursome way, stoop down to Baltzar's feet, to see whether he had a huff on, that is to say, whether he was a devil or not, because he acted beyond the parts of man." As this took place in 1658 there was some excuse for the grim pleasantry; moreover music had suffered an eclipse, and performers in this country were comparatively few. Even the gentle and polite Corelli forgot himself so far as to apply the term, devil, to another violinist. As the story may not be so well known as the foregoing, I shall briefly repeat it. Nicolaus Adam Strungk (or Strunck), violinist to Ernest Augustus, Elector of Hanover, when in Rome (_circa_ 1684) made it his business to see Corelli.