it gratis.  As to Frederick’s musical education in Warsaw, it cannot have cost much.  And then, how improbable that the Prince should have paid the comparatively trifling school-fees and left the young man when he went abroad dependent upon the support of his parents!  The letters from Vienna (1831) show unmistakably that Chopin applied to his father repeatedly for money, and regretted being such a burden to him.  Further, Chopin’s correspondence, which throws much light on his relation to Prince Radziwili, contains nothing which would lead one to infer any such indebtedness as Liszt mentions.  But in order that the reader may be in possession of the whole evidence and able to judge for himself, I shall place before him Liszt’s curiously circumstantial account in its entirety:—­

The Prince bestowed upon him the inappreciable gift of a good education, no part of which remained neglected.  His elevated mind enabling him to understand the exigencies of an artist’s career, he, from the time of his protege’s entering the college to the entire completion of his studies, paid the pension through the agency of a friend, M. Antoine Korzuchowski, [footnote:  Liszt should have called this gentleman Adam Kozuchowski.] who always maintained cordial relations and a constant friendship with Chopin.

Liszt’s informant was no doubt Chopin’s Paris friend Albert Grzymala, [footnote:  M. Karasowski calls this Grzymala erroneously Francis.  More information about this gentleman will be given in a subsequent chapter.] who seems to have had no connection with the Chopin family in Poland.  Karasowski thinks that the only foundation of the story is a letter and present from Prince Radziwill—­acknowledgments of the dedication to him of the Trio, Op. 8—­which Adam Kozuchowski brought to Chopin in 1833. [Footnote:  M. Karasowski, Fryderyk Chopin, vol. i., p. 65.]

Frederick was much liked by his school-fellows, which, as his manners and disposition were of a nature thoroughly appreciated by boys, is not at all to be wondered at.  One of the most striking features in the character of young Chopin was his sprightliness, a sparkling effervescence that manifested itself by all sorts of fun and mischief.  He was never weary of playing pranks on his sisters, his comrades, and even on older people, and indulged to the utmost his fondness for caricaturing by pictorial and personal imitations.  In the course of a lecture the worthy rector of the Lyceum discovered the scapegrace making free with the face and figure of no less a person than his own rectorial self.  Nevertheless the irreverent pupil got off easily, for the master, with as much magnanimity as wisdom, abstained from punishing the culprit, and, in a subscript which he added to the caricature, even praised the execution of it.  A German Protestant pastor at Warsaw, who made always sad havoc of the Polish language, in which he had every Sunday to preach one of his sermons, was the