that he went to bed very early_. It was
during his residence in Paris in the winter of 1834 that he proposed
to Berlioz, for whom he had the most cordial esteem and admiration,
to write a concerto for his Stradiuarius violin, which resulted in the
famous symphony "Harold en Italie." Four years after this he bestowed
the sum of twenty thousand francs on Berlioz, who was then in pressing
need, delicately disguising the donation as a testimonial of his
admiration for the "Symphonie Fantastique." Though the eagerness of
Paganini to make money urged him to labor for years while his health was
exceedingly frail, and though he was justly stigmatized as penurious
in many ways, he was capable of princely generosity on occasions which
appealed strongly to the ardent sympathies which lay at the bottom of
his nature.

Paganini made a great fortune by the exercise of his art, and in 1834
purchased, among other property in his native country, a charming
country seat called Villa Gajona, near Parma. Here he spent two years
in comparative quiet, though still continuing to give concerts. At this
period and for some time previous many music-sellers had striven to buy
the copyright of his works. But Paganini put a price on it which
was prescriptive, the probability being that he did not wish his
compositions to pass out of his hands till he had given up his career on
the concert stage. He was willing that they should be arranged for the
piano, but not published as violin music.

After his return to Italy Paganini gave several most successful
concerts, among others, one for the poor at Placentia, on the 14th of
November, 1834, and another at the court of the Duchess of Parma, in the
December following. But his health was already giving way most visibly.
Phthisis of the larynx, which rendered him a mere shadow of his former
self, and sometimes almost deprived him of speech, had been gaining
ground since his return to his native climate. In 1836, however, he was
better, and some unscrupulous Parisian speculators induced him to lend
his name to a joint-stock undertaking, a sort of gambling-room and
concert-hall, which they called the Casino Paganini. This was duly
opened in a fashionable part of Paris in 1837; but, as the Government
would not allow the establishment to be used as a gambling-house, and
the concerts did not pay the expenses, it became a great failure, and
the illustrious artist actually suffered loss by it to the extent of
f