United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A Russian lady is to play the piano there this evening, and I shall ask her to help me out." Mr. Plagemann could not go, and, as so often before, Mr. Mickley started out alone. Just before reaching the house of Mr. Hopkinson he was taken suddenly ill, and, chancing to be close by the residence of his physician, Dr. Meigs, he stopped there and rang the bell.
Here he remained until 1842, and then established himself in the building mentioned at the beginning of this article, where he continued to live until the final closing up of his business in 1869. It does not appear that Mr. Mickley was ever actively engaged in the manufacture of piano-fortes.
Mr. Mickley set sail on the 5th of June, 1869, being at that time a few months past his seventieth year. He remained abroad for three years, visiting every country in Europe, ascending the Nile to the first cataract, passing through the Suez Canal, and across a portion of Asia Minor and Palestine. He made two trips to Northern Sweden to behold the spectacle of the midnight sun.
Alfonzo V., King of Aragon, in the fifteenth century, was the first person known to have collected coins for study or amusement, and Augustin, Archbishop of Tarragona, was the first writer on the subject. The science of numismatics is, therefore, of Spanish origin." Mr, Mickley left Madrid in March, crossing the Pyrenees and arriving in Paris on the 24th of that month, his seventy-third birthday.
His necessary duties demanded knowledge which is now distributed among several entirely distinct sets of artificers. That young Mickley satisfactorily completed his apprenticeship may be inferred from two facts: he started in business for himself in August, 1822, and in October, 1831, the Franklin Institute awarded him a prize for skill in the manufacture of pianos.
Mickley wrapped for him some violin-strings, the last work of his hands. He requested Mr. Plagemann to go with him that evening to visit another old friend, Oliver Hopkinson, Esq., at whose house there were to be some quartettes. "I have a letter," he said, "from the Russian ambassador, a part of which I am unable to translate.
The account commonly given is that he separated from his wife and died in a convent. Mr. Mickley, with his accustomed perseverance, started out to see if this matter might not be cleared up. At Innspruck he inquired in vain for information. As Fétis and Forster both fixed his birthplace at Absom, a small village some twelve miles from Innspruck, Mickley repaired thither.
A single instance will serve to show the minuteness and persistence of his investigations. In one of the public libraries of Stockholm Mickley discovered an ancient Dutch manuscript signed by Peter Minuit. No scholar within reach could master its contents.
Mickley journeyed, so long as any fresh acquisition of knowledge was to be gained the old traveller appeared insensible to fatigue. When halfway up the Great Pyramid an English group who were in his company stopped and insisted upon going no farther.
After seeing him safely out of the front door, Mickley went back and secured a considerable sum of paper money which had been totally overlooked for the sake of the beloved viola. Plich at his death bequeathed the viola to Mickley, and it was the only instrument which the latter always refused to part with during his lifetime.
Word Of The Day