But it is needless to go thrice over the map of Italy, and detail all the triumphs of our acoustic hero among his own countrymen. Let us shift the scene to Germany, and the time to the year 1828, when he was exhibiting before the people at Vienna, and exciting the admiration and astonishment of the most distinguished professors and connoisseurs of that critical city. His inducement to quit his native Italy had been furnished, it appears, by Prince Metternich, who had witnessed his performances in the preceding year at Rome, when the Pope (_soit dit en passant_) had conferred on our Artist the order of the Golden Spur, an honor which had formerly been awarded to Gluck and Mozart. All notion of rivalling the foreigner was at once banished from among the Germans; and it is said that Mayseder, their violinist of then highest fame, with an ingeniousness that did him honor, intimated, in a letter to a London friend, that he felt he might now lock up his violin as soon as he liked! The successes of Paganini gave new currency to the tales of crime and _diablerie_ which inventive fame, “ficti pravique tenax,” had so often circulated in connection with him. A captain of banditti—a Carbonaro—a dungeon-détenu—a deadly duellist—a four-mistress man—a friend of Beelzebub—a “bowl-and-dagger” administrator—_these_ are some of the characters that were freely assigned to him. Over the mouth of his aged mother, _in articulo mortis_, he was asserted to have placed a leathern tube, and to have caught her last breath at the S holes of his fiddle!—He was made out, in short, the very _beau idéal_ of a fellow that might do the “First Murderer” in a Melodrama. These romantic rumours, however they might assist his success with the public, could not be passed by in silence. The injured, yet profited, object of them, made a public manifesto of his innocence in the leading Journals of Vienna, and appealed to the magistrates of the various States under whose protection he had lived, to say if he had ever offended against the laws. This was all very well; but, what was still better, enough of the pleasing delusion remained, in spite of all disavowals, to render Paganini the continued pet of the public. Indeed, a general intoxication with regard to him prevailed for some time with the Viennese public. Verses were daily poured forth in honour of him—medals were struck—and Fashion made profuse appropriation of his name to her various objects. Hats, gloves, gowns, stockings, were _à la Paganini_:—purveyors of refreshment fortified their dishes with his name; and if a brilliant stroke were achieved at billiards, it was likened unto a stroke of his bow! snuff-boxes and cigar-cases displayed his portrait—and his bust was carved upon the walking-stick of the man of mode.