highest development in the four children of Abraham Mendelssohn Bartholdy—Fanny, Felix, Rebecca, and Paul—the most brilliant of whom were the eldest daughter Fanny, and her renowned brother Felix.
Fanny Mendelssohn was born at Hamburg, Nov. 14, 1805, in a pretty, irregular little cottage, called Martin's Mill, the balcony of which commanded a view of the river Elbe. Her father, in writing to announce the birth to old Madame Salomon, his mother-in-law, mentions a curiously prophetic remark of his wife's concerning her first-born, then but a few days old:
"Leah says that the child has Bach-fugue fingers."
From her earliest years the little girl showed the same marvelous musical talent as her brother Felix, who was born in 1809. The two were educated together, receiving the best instruction obtainable, and displaying equal aptitude and application. Both began to compose at a very early age, and both displayed extraordinary memory. Fanny, when only thirteen, learnt twenty-four of Bach's preludes, and played them without notes as a surprise for her father. At fifteen, while she was away from home, she sent him in a letter a number of songs of her own composition.
They went over your Romances yesterday at Viry," he wrote to her, “and you will be glad to hear that Fanny Sebastiani sang 'Les Soins de mon Troupeau,' very nicely and correctly, and likes them much. I confess that I prefer that song to all the others—so far as I can judge of them, for they were only very imperfectly performed. It is bright, and has an easy, natural flow, which most of the others have not; some of them are too ambitious for the words. But that one song I like so much that since yesterday I have often sung it to myself, whilst I remember nothing of the others, and I think facility one of the most important qualities of a song. At the same time,
