Ole Bull was surprised at this.  The old lady put on her spectacles, and, as she riveted her eyes upon him, her countenance changed suddenly.  She had found in him such a resemblance to the son she had lost that she at once consented to his residing in her house.  Some time afterward Ole Bull became her son indeed, having married the fascinating girl who had exclaimed, “Look at him, mother!”

With the little money he had now earned he determined to go to Italy, provided with some letters of introduction; and he gave his first Italian concert at Milan in 1834.  Applause was not wanting, but his performance was rather severely criticised in the papers.  The following paragraph, reproduced from an Italian musical periodical, published shortly after this concert, probably represents very truly the state of his talent at that period: 

“M.  Ole Bull plays the music of Spohr, May-seder, Pugnani, and others, without knowing the true character of the music he plays, and partly spoils it by adding a color of his own.  It is manifest that this color of his own proceeds from an original, poetical, and musical individuality; but of this originality he is himself unconscious.  He has not formed himself; in fact, he has no style; he is an uneducated musician. Whether he is a diamond or not is uncertain; but certain it is that the diamond is not polished.”

In a short time Ole Bull discovered that it was necessary to cultivate, more than he had done, his cantabile—­this was his weakest point, and a most important one.  In Italy he found masters who enabled him to develop this great quality of the violin, and from that moment his career as an artist was established.  The next concert of any consequence in which he played was at Bologna under peculiar circumstances; and his reputation as a great violinist appears to date from that concert.  De Beriot and Malibran were then idolized at Bologna, and just as Ole Bull arrived in that ancient town, De Beriot was about to fulfill an engagement to play at a concert given by the celebrated Philharmonic Society there.  The engagement had been made by the Marquis di Zampieri, between whom and the Belgian artist there was some feeling of mutual aversion, growing out of a misunderstanding and a remark of the marquis which had wounded the susceptibilities of the other.  The consequence was that on the day of the concert De Beriot sent a note, saying that he had a sore finger and could not play.

Marquis Zampieri was in a quandary, for the time was short.  In his embarrassment he took council with Mme. Colbran Rossini, who was then at Bologna with her husband, the illustrious composer.  It happened that Ole Bull’s lodging was in the same palazzo, and Mme. Rossini had often heard the tones of the young artist’s violin in his daily practicing; her curiosity had been greatly aroused about this unknown player, and now was the chance to gratify it.  She told the noble entrepreneur that she had discovered a violinist quite worthy of taking De Beriot’s place.