essel;
this she did without the least sacrilegious intention; but it seems the
cup, which was a pretty large one, was dedicated to holy uses, and only
borrowed by the priest on an entertainment which he made for some of his
brethren. We were immediately pursued upon this robbery (the cup being
taken in our possession), and carried before the same magistrate, who
had before behaved to us with so much gentleness: but his countenance
was now changed, for the moment the priest appeared against us, his
severity was as remarkable as his candor had been before, and we were
both ordered to be stripped and whipped through the streets.

"This sentence was executed with great severity, the priest himself
attending and encouraging the executioner, which he said he did for the
good of our souls; but, though our backs were both flayed, neither
my mother's torments nor my own afflicted me so much as the indignity
offered to my poor fiddle, which was carried in triumph before me, and
treated with a contempt by the multitude, intimating a great scorn
for the science I had the honor to profess; which, as it is one of
the noblest inventions of men, and as I had been always in the highest
degree proud of my excellence in it, I suffered so much from the
ill-treatment my fiddle received, that I would have given all my
remainder of skin to have preserved it from this affront.

"My mother survived the whipping a very short time; and I was now
reduced to great distress and misery, till a young Roman of considerable
rank took a fancy to me, received me into his family, and conversed with
me in the utmost familiarity. He had a violent attachment to music, and
would learn to play on the fiddle; but, through want of genius for the
science, he never made any considerable progress. However, I flattered
his performance, and he grew extravagantly fond of me for so doing.
Had I continued this behavior I might possibly have reaped the greatest
advantages from his kindness; but I had raised his own opinion of his
musical abilities so high, that he now began to prefer his skill to
mine, a presumption I could not bear. One day as we were playing in
concert he was horribly out; nor was it possible, as he destroyed the
harmony, to avoid telling him of it. Instead of receiving my correction,
he answered it was my blunder and not his, and that I had mistaken the
key. Such an affront from my own scholar was beyond human patience; I
flew into a violent passion,