ill, and rather surly at the disturbance. Young Paganini, however,
speedily silenced the complaints of the querulous invalid. The great
player himself relates the anecdote: "His wife showed us into a room
adjoining the bedroom, till she had spoken to the sick man. Finding on
the table a violin and the music of Rolla's latest concerto, I took
up the instrument and played the piece at sight. Astonished at what
he heard, the composer asked for the name of the player, and could not
believe it was only a young boy till he had seen for himself. He then
told me that he had nothing to teach me, and advised me to go to Paer
for study in composition." But, as Paer was at this time in Germany,
Paganini studied under Ghiretti and Rolla himself while he remained in
Parma, according to the monograph of Fetis.

The youthful player had already begun to search out new effects on the
violin, and to create for himself characteristics of tone and treatment
hitherto unknown to players. After his return to Genoa he composed his
first "Etudes," which were of such unheard-of difficulty that he was
sometimes obliged to practice a single passage ten hours running. His
intense study resulted not only in his acquirement of an unlimited
execution, but in breaking down his health. His father was a harsh and
inexorable taskmaster, and up to this time Paganini (now being fourteen)
had remained quiescent under this tyrant's control. But the desire of
liberty was breeding projects in his breast, which opportunity soon
favored. He managed to get permission to travel alone for the first
time to Lucca, where he had engaged to play at the musical festival
in November, 1798. He was received with so much enthusiasm that he
determined not to return to the paternal roof, and at once set off
to fulfill engagements at Pisa and other towns. In vain the angry and
mortified father sought to reclaim the young rebel who had slipped
through his fingers. Nicolo found the sweets of freedom too precious
to go back again to bondage, though he continued to send his father a
portion of the proceeds of his playing.

The youth, intoxicated with the license of his life, plunged into all
kinds of dissipation, specially into gambling, at this time a universal
vice in Italy, as indeed it was throughout Europe. Alternate fits of
study and gaming, both of which he pursued with equal zeal, and the
exhaustion of the life he led, operated dangerously on his enfeebled
frame, and fits