There happened to be at this time in Bergen a professor of music named Paulsen, who also played skillfully on the violin.  Originally from Denmark, he had come to Bergen on business, but, finding the brandy so good and cheap, and his musical talent so much appreciated, he postponed his departure so long that he became a resident.  Paulsen, it was said, would show his perseverance in playing as long as there remained a drop in the brandy bottle before him, when his musical ambition came to a sudden close.  When the old man, for he was more than sixty when young Ole Bull first knew him, had worn his clothes into a threadbare state, his friends would supply him with a fresh suit, and at intervals he gave concerts, which every one thought it a religious duty to attend.  It was to this Dominie Sampson that Ole Bull was indebted for his earliest musical training; but it seems that the lad made such swift progress that his master soon had nothing further to teach him.  Poor old Paulsen was in despair, for in his bright pupil he saw a successful rival, and, fearing that his occupation was gone, he left Bergen for ever.

In spite of the boy’s most manifest genius for music, his father was bent on making him a clergyman, going almost to the length of forbidding him to practice any longer on the dearly loved fiddle, which had now become a part of himself; but Ole persevered, and played at night softly, in constant fear that the sounds would be heard.  But his mother and grandmother sympathized with him, and encouraged his labors of love in spite of the paternal frowns.  The author of a recent article in an American magazine relates an interview with Ole Bull, in which the aged artist gave some interesting facts of that early period in his life.  His father’s assistant, who was musical, occasionally received musical catalogues from Copenhagen, and in one of these the boy first saw the name of Paganini, and reference to his famous “Caprices.”  One evening his father brought home some Italian musicians, and Ole Bull heard from them all they knew of the great player, who was then turning the musical world topsy-turvy with a fever of excitement.  “I went to my grandmother.  ‘Dear grandmother,’ I said, ‘can’t I get some of Paganini’s music?’ ‘Don’t tell any one,’ said that dear old woman, ’but I will try and buy a piece of his for you if you are a good child.’  And she did try, and I was wild when I got the Paganini music.  How difficult it was, but oh, how beautiful!  That garden-house was my refuge.  Maybe—­I am not so sure of it—­the cats did not go quite so wild as some four years before.  One day—­a memorable one—­I went to a quartet party.  The new leader of our philharmonic was there, a very fine violinist, and he played for us a concerto of Spohr’s.  I knew it, and was delighted with his reading of it.  We had porter to drink in another room, and we all drank it, but before they had finished I went back to the music-room, and commenced trying the Spohr.  I was, I suppose, carried away with the music, forgot myself, and they heard me.