Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/422

352 these he made several imitations of the fife, and bartered them to his playmates.

At the age of four or five years, his ear was so correct that he could play any easy tune after once hearing it. Before he was quite six years old, a neighbouring blacksmith, into whose house he went frequently, lost twenty or thirty horseshoes. Diligent search was made for them during many days. But one evening the blacksmith, John Davy's uncle, heard faint chimes, like those of Crediton Church, sounding from the garret of his house, and having listened a sufficient time to be convinced that his ears did not deceive him, he ascended to the attic, and there found the boy with the horseshoes, or so many of them as would form an octave, hung clear of the wall to nails, and he was striking them with a hammer or iron rod, playing the chimes of Crediton Church bells.

The story coming to the ears of Chancellor Carrington, then rector of Upton Hellions, he felt interested in the child, and showed him a harpsichord, on which he speedily acquired some proficiency. He applied himself likewise to the violin, on which his uncle, who played in the orchestra of the church choir, was able to give him some instruction, and he found little difficulty in surmounting the preliminaries. When eleven years old the Chancellor introduced him to the Rev. Mr. Eastcott, who possessed a pianoforte, then an instrument of recent introduction, at least in the west. With this also the boy soon became familiar, and so impressed Mr. Eastcott with his intuitive genius for music, that he advised his friends to place him with some musician of eminence, under whom he would have free access to a good instrument, and might learn the rules of composition. They applied to Mr. William Jackson, the organist of Exeter Cathedral, and when John was