Tartini and Lolly, had attained to the great mastery which they possessed over their instrument during a period of solitude—­the one within the walls of a cloister, the other in the privacy and retirement of a remote country village.  At all events, the rumours were universally circulated and believed, and the innocent and much injured Paganini had for many years unconsciously stood forth in the eyes of the world as a violator of the laws, and even a convicted murderer—­not improbably, to a certain extent, reaping the golden fruits of that “bad eminence;” for public performers, as we too often see, who have once lost their “good name,” so far from finding themselves, in the words of Iago, “poor indeed,” generally discover that they have only become objects of greater interest and attraction.  How long he had lived in the enjoyment of this supposed infamy, and all the benefits accruing from it, we really cannot pretend to say; but he seems never to have been made fully aware of the formidable position in which he stood until he had reached Vienna, when the Theatrical Gazette, in reviewing his first concert, dropped some pretty broad hints as to the rumoured misdeeds of his early life.  Whereupon he resolved at once publicly to proclaim his innocence, and to put down the calumny; for which purpose, on the 10th of April, 1828, there was inserted in the leading Vienna journals a manifesto, in Italian as well as German, subscribed by him, declaring that all these widely-circulated rumours were false; that at no time, and under no government whatever, had he ever offended against the laws, or been put under coercion; and that he had always demeaned himself as became a peaceable and inoffensive member of society; for the truth of which he referred to the magistracies of the different states under whose protection he had till then lived in the public exercise of his profession.

The truth of this appeal (which it is obvious no delinquent would have dared to make) was never called in question, no one ever ventured to take up the gauntlet which Paganini had thrown down, and his character as a man thenceforward stood free from suspicion.

His whimsicalities, his love of fun, and many other points of his character, are sometimes curiously exemplified in his fantasias.  He imitates in perfection the whistling and chirrupping of birds, the tinkling and tolling of bells, and almost every variety of tone which admits of being produced; and in his performance of Le Streghe (The Witches) a favourite interlude of his, where the tremulous voices of the old women are given with a truly singular and laughable effect, his vis comica finds peculiar scope.

His command of the back-string of the instrument has always been an especial theme of wonder and admiration, and, in the opinion of some, could only be accounted for by resorting to the theory of the dungeon, and the supposition that his other strings being worn out, and not having it in his power to supply their places, he had been forced from necessity to take refuge in the string in question; a notion very like that of a person who would assert, that for an opera dancer to learn to stand on one leg, the true way would be—­to have only one leg to stand upon.  We shall give Paganini’s explanation of this mystery in his own words: