on the piano-forte, the violin, or the organ, or plays
_extempore_. But when we learn that the infant Mozart, at four years of
age, began to compose, and by an instinct perception of beauty to make
correct basses to melodies; and also that he became a great performer on
two instruments, without the usual labour of practice, we cease to be
surprised at the mechanical dexterity of his fingers in after-life, when
composition and other pursuits had engrossed the time usually employed
in preserving the power of execution.

The father of Mozart held the situation of Vice Kapell-meister and
violinist in the chapel of the archbishop of Salzburg. In the service of
this haughty and ignorant nobleman, (who appears to have been a complete
feudal tyrant, and to have represented all the pride and insolence for
which the then beggarly-princes of Germany were remarkable), he was so
ill paid, that notwithstanding his utmost exertions as an instructor, it
was with difficulty he supported a wife and family. Anna Maria,[3] born
August 29, 1751, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, born January 27, 1756,
were the only two of seven children who survived. The sister made such
progress on the harpsichord, that in the first journeys which the father
took in order to display the talents of his children, she divided the
public attention with her brother. Wolfgang, however, not only profited
as a player, from the careful instruction which both the children
received from their parent, but began then to exhibit the extraordinary
precocity of his musical mind; the minuets and other little movements
which he composed from the age of four to seven show a consistency of
thought and a symmetry of design which promised a maturity of the
highest genius. Of the first expedition of Leopold Mozart with his son
and daughter, in January, 1762, little account is preserved, further
than that they visited Munich, and played concertos on the harpsichord
before the royal family. In the following autumn, (Wolfgang being then
in his seventh year), the father proceeded in the same company to
Vienna; the journey was made by water, and the family gave concerts at
the principal towns they passed, as occasion served. Leopold Mozart
writes, "On Tuesday we arrived at Ips, where two Minorites and a
Benedictine who accompanied us said mass,[4] during which our little
Wolfgang _tumbled about_ upon the organ and played so well, that the
Franciscan fathers, who were just sitting down to