gone out, but that he went to bed very early.  It was during his residence in Paris in the winter of 1834 that he proposed to Berlioz, for whom he had the most cordial esteem and admiration, to write a concerto for his Stradiuarius violin, which resulted in the famous symphony “Harold en Italie.”  Four years after this he bestowed the sum of twenty thousand francs on Berlioz, who was then in pressing need, delicately disguising the donation as a testimonial of his admiration for the “Symphonie Fantastique.”  Though the eagerness of Paganini to make money urged him to labor for years while his health was exceedingly frail, and though he was justly stigmatized as penurious in many ways, he was capable of princely generosity on occasions which appealed strongly to the ardent sympathies which lay at the bottom of his nature.

Paganini made a great fortune by the exercise of his art, and in 1834 purchased, among other property in his native country, a charming country seat called Villa Gajona, near Parma.  Here he spent two years in comparative quiet, though still continuing to give concerts.  At this period and for some time previous many music-sellers had striven to buy the copyright of his works.  But Paganini put a price on it which was prescriptive, the probability being that he did not wish his compositions to pass out of his hands till he had given up his career on the concert stage.  He was willing that they should be arranged for the piano, but not published as violin music.

After his return to Italy Paganini gave several most successful concerts, among others, one for the poor at Placentia, on the 14th of November, 1834, and another at the court of the Duchess of Parma, in the December following.  But his health was already giving way most visibly.  Phthisis of the larynx, which rendered him a mere shadow of his former self, and sometimes almost deprived him of speech, had been gaining ground since his return to his native climate.  In 1836, however, he was better, and some unscrupulous Parisian speculators induced him to lend his name to a joint-stock undertaking, a sort of gambling-room and concert-hall, which they called the Casino Paganini.  This was duly opened in a fashionable part of Paris in 1837; but, as the Government would not allow the establishment to be used as a gambling-house, and the concerts did not pay the expenses, it became a great failure, and the illustrious artist actually suffered loss by it to the extent of forty thousand francs.

One of his last, if not his very last, concert was given with the guitar-player, Signor Legnani, at Turin, on the 9th of June, 1837, for the benefit of the poor.  He was then on his way to fulfill his engagements at the fatal Parisian casino, which opened with much splendor in the November following.  But his health had again broken down, and the fatigue of the journey had told upon him so much that he was unable to appear at the casino.  When the enterprise was found to be a failure, a pettifogging lawsuit was carried on against him, and, according to Fetis, who is very explicit on this subject, the French judges condemned him to pay the aforesaid forty thousand francs, and to be deprived of his liberty until that amount was paid—­all this without hearing his defense!