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" expressing what he had just heard, but
" in vain: he, however, then composed
" a piece, which is perhaps, the best of
" all his works, he called it the Devil's
" Sonata, but it was so inferior to what
" his sleep had produced, that he de-
" clared he would have broken his in-
" strument, and abandoned music for
" ever, if he could have subsisted by any
" other means *."
He married early a wife of the Xan-
tippe sort, and his patience upon the most
trying occasions was always truly Socra-
tic. He had no other children than his
scholars, of whom his care was constantly
paternal. Nardini, his first, and favourite
pupil, came from Leghorn to see him in
his sickness, and attend him in his last
moments, with true filial affection and
tenderness. During the latter part of his
life he played but little, except at the
church of St. Anthony of Padua, to
which he had devoted himself so early as
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