“Paganini’s playing is in a very high degree intellectual. It is mental, as well as physical and mechanical. The instant he seizes his violin, which he usually coquets with for a time before bringing it up to its proper place, a sudden animation passes over his countenance. He has the advantage, which all concerto players, by the way, ought to adopt, of _never using a book_. This mode, in itself, has as much the superiority as a speech delivered has over one that is read. When the first bow is drawn, Paganini is evidently lost to every other thought, and is revelling probably in a world of his own creation. All his passages seem free and unpremeditated, as if conceived on the instant. One has no impression of their having cost him either forethought or labour. The word difficulty has no place in his vocabulary, so completely is all brought under his subjection and mastery. “Nothing can be more intense in feeling than his conception and delivery of an adagio passage. His tone is not, perhaps, so full and round as that of some other players—as Baillot, or De Beriot, for example: it is delicate, rather than strong; but that delicacy is inconceivable, unless one has heard it, and was probably never possessed equally by any other player. His touch is occasionally so fine, that the note seems to float in the air, and not to spring from any instrument. In point of expression, it is impossible to imagine any thing more perfect. The melancholy or tender (as should be the case in slow movements) mostly predominates; but there is no shade or form of expression which the genius of Paganini does not draw forth. His adagios are intermixed with passages of rapid execution, which go off with the rapidity of a rocket, or a falling star—a break of the subject, or an impertinence, in any hands but his own—but, if analyzed, all is in perfect keeping.