to receive his lessons, leaving his little companions (with whom our neighbourhood abounded) with the greatest cheerfulness to go to his father, who was so pleased with his performances that—I think it must have been in October or November—he made him play a solo on the Adempken in Rake's concert, being placed on a table before a crowded company, for which he was very much applauded and caressed, particularly by an English lady, who put a gold coin in his little pocket.
"It was not long before my father had as many scholars as he could find time to attend, for some of those he had left behind returned to him again, and several families who had sons of about the age of my little brother, became his pupils and proved in time very good performers. And when they assembled at my father's to make little concerts, I was frequently called to join the second violin in an overture, for my father found pleasure in giving me sometimes a lesson before the instruments were laid by after practising with Dietrich, for I never was missing at those hours, sitting in a corner with my knitting and listening all the while."A serious interruption of this and all other occupations was caused by a severe attack of typhus fever which in the summer of 1761 threatened to be fatal, and
"reduced my strength to that degree that for several months after I was obliged to mount the stairs on my hands and feet like an infant; but here I will remark that from that time to this present day (June 5, 1821) I do not remember ever to have spent a whole day in bed."
In spite of her strong objections to learning, the
