Tartini was a celebrated musician, born at Pirano, in Istria, and
being much inclined to the study of music in his early youth, dreamed
one night, that he made a compact with the Devil, who promised to be
at his service on all occasions: and during this vision, every thing
succeeded according to his mind: his wishes were prevented, and his
desires always surpassed, by the assistance of this new servant. At
last, he imagined that he presented the Devil with his violin, in
order to discover what kind of a musician _he_ was; when, to his great
astonishment, he heard him play a solo, so singularly beautiful, and
which he executed with such superior taste and precision, that it
surpassed all the music which he had ever heard or conceived in his
life. So great was his surprise, and so exquisite was his delight upon
this occasion, that it deprived him of the power of breathing. He
awoke with the violence of his sensations, and instantly seized his
fiddle, in hopes of expressing what he had just heard, but in vain: he,
however, then composed a piece of music, which is, perhaps, the best
of all his works, and called it, the _Devil’s Sonata_; but it was so
far inferior to what he had produced in his sleep, that he declared he
would have broken his instrument, and abandoned music for ever, if he
could have found any other means of subsistence.