Daily National Intelligencer

ON MUSICAL PRECOCITY

FROM THE AURORA.

Mr. Duane: The wonder, combined with pleasure, recently excited in this city by the children of Mr. Lewis, reminds us of the celebrated Mozart.

This eminent composer was born at Salzburg in 1756, and is well known to have been a prodigy of early talent. When only three years old, his great amusement was finding concords on the piano ; and nothing could equal his delight when he had discovered an harmonious interval. At the age of four, his father began to teach him little pieces of music, which he always learnt to play in a very short time; and, before he was six, he had invented several small pieces himself, and even attempted composition of some extent and intricacy.

The sensibility of his organs appears to have been excessive. The slightest false note or harsh tone was quite a torture to him; and, in the early part of his childhood, he could not hear the sound of a trumpet without growing pale, and almost falling into convulsions. His father, for many years, carried him and his sister about to different cities for the purpose of exhibiting their talents. In 1764, they arrived in London, and played before the late King. Mozart also played the organ at the chapel royal; and with this, the King was more pleased than with his performance on the harpsichord. During this visit he composed six sonatas, which he dedicated to the late Queen. He was then only eight years old. A few years after this, he went to Milan; and, at that place, was performed, in 1770, the opera of Mithridates, composed by Mozart, at the age of fourteen, and performed twenty nights in succession. From that time till he was nineteen, he continued to be the musical wonder of Europe; as much from the astonishing extent of his abilities, as from the extreme youth of their possessor.

Entirely absorbed in music, this great man was a child in every other respect. His hands were so wedded to the piano, that he could use them for nothing else; at table, his wife carved for him : and in every thing relating to money, or the management of his domestic affairs, or even the choice and arrangement of his amusements, he was entirely under her guidance.