y many privations.
I myself experienced a little sample of Clementi's truly Italian
parsimony, for one day I found teacher and pupil with upturned sleeves,
engaged at the wash-tub, washing their stockings and other linen. They
did not suffer themselves to be disturbed, and Clementi advised me to do
the same, as washing in St. Petersburg was not only very expensive, but
the linen suffered much from the method used in washing it."

From the above it may be suspected that Clementi was not only player
and composer, but man of business. He had been very successful in
money-making in England from the start, and it was not many years before
he accumulated a sufficient amount to buy an interest in the firm of
Longman & Broderip, "manufacturers of musical instruments, and music
sellers to their majesties." The failure of the house, by which he
sustained heavy losses, induced him to try his hand alone at music
publishing and piano-forte manufacturing; and his great success (the
firm is still extant in the person of his partner's son, Mr. Col-lard)
proves he was an exception to the majority of artists, who rarely
possess business talents. Clementi met many reverses in his commercial
career. In March, 1807, the warehouses occupied by Clementi's new firm
were destroyed by fire, entailing a loss of about forty thousand pounds.
But the man's courage was indomitable, and he retrieved his misfortunes
with characteristic pluck and cheerfulness. After 1810 he gave up
playing in public, and devoted himself to composing and the conduct of
his piano-forte business, which became very large and valuable. Himself
an inventor and mechanician, he made many important improvements in the
construction of the piano, some of which have never been superseded.

III.

Clementi numbers among his pupils more great names in the art of
piano-forte playing than any other great master. This is partly owing
to the fact, it may be, that he began his career in the infancy of the
piano-forte as an instrument, and was the first to establish a solid
basis for the technique of the instrument. In addition to John Field and
J. B. Cramer, previously mentioned, were Zeuner, Dussek, Alex. Kleugel,
Ludwig Berger, Kalkbrenner, Charles Mayer, and Meyerbeer. These
musicians not only added richly to the literature of the piano-forte,
but were splendid exponents of its powers as virtuosos. But mere
artistic fame is transitory, and it is in Clementi's contributions to
the p