city. His work in this cloister, consist- | plished. Seven years later it was taken Sodoma was so singular a fellow, even seems; for with one of his racers, ridden | from real models. He puts them into ac by himself, he bore away the prize in that wild horse-race they run upon the Piazza at Siena. For the rest "he attired himself in pompous clothes, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks trimmed with gold lace, gorgeous caps, neck-chains, and other vanities of a like description, fit for buffoons and mountebanks." In one of the frescoes of Monte Oliveto, Sodoma painted his own portrait, with some of his curious pets around him. He there appears as a young man with large and decidedly handsome features, a great shock of dark, curled hair escaping from a yellow cap, and flowing down over a rich mantle which drapes his shoulders. If we may trust Vasari, he showed his curious humors freely to the monks. "Nobody could describe the amusement he furnished to those good fathers, who christened him Mattaccio (the big madman), or the insane tricks he played there." In spite of Vasari's malevolence, the portrait he has given us of Bazzi has so far nothing unpleasant about it. The man seems to have been a madcap artist, combining with his love for his profession a taste for fine clothes, and what was then, perhaps, rarer in people of his sort, a great partiality for living creatures of all kinds. The darker shades of Vasari's picture have been purposely omitted from these pages. We only know for certain, about Bazzi's private life, that he was married in 1510 to a certain Beatrice, who bore him two children, and who was still living with him in 1541. The further suggestion that he painted at Monte Oliveto subjects unworthy of a religious house, is wholly disproved by the frescoes which still exist in a state of very tolerable preservation. They represent various episodes in the legend of St. Benedict; all marked by that spirit of simple, almost childish piety which is a special characteristic of Italian religious history. The series forms, in fact, a painted novella of monastic life; its petty jealousies, its petty trials, its tribulations and temptations, and its indescribably petty mira cles. Bazzi was well fitted for the execution of this task. He had a swift and facile brush, considerable versatility in the treatment of monotonous subjects, and a never-failing sense of humor. His whitecowled monks, some of them with the rosy freshness of boys, some with the handsome, brown faces of middle life, others astute and crafty, others again wrinkled with old age, have clearly been copied tion without the slightest effort, and surrounds them with landscapes, architecture, and furniture, appropriate to each successive situation. The whole is done with so much grace, such simplicity of composition, and transparency of style, corresponding to the naif and superficial legend, that we feel a perfect harmony between the artist's mind and the motives he was made to handle. In this respect Bazzi's portion of the legend of St. Benedict is more successful than Signorelli's. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the conditions of his task confined him to uncomplicated groupings, and a scale of color in which white predominates. For Bazzi, as is shown by subsequent work in the Farnesina Villa at Rome, and in the Church of S. Domenico at Siena, was no master of composition; and the tone, even of his masterpieces, inclines to heat. Unlike Signorelli, Bazzi felt a deep, artistic sympathy with female beauty; and the most attractive fresco in the whole series is that in which the evil monk Flo rentius brings a bevy of fair damsels to the convent. There is one group in par ticular, of six women, so delicately varied in carriage of the head and suggested movement of the body, as to be comparable only to a. strain of concerted music. This is, perhaps, the painter's masterpiece in the rendering of pure beauty, if we except his St. Sebastian of the Uffizzi. We tire of studying pictures, hardly less than of reading about them! I was glad enough, after three hours spent among the frescoes of this cloister, to wander forth into the copses which surround the convent. Sunlight was streaming treacherously from flying clouds; and though it was high noon, the oak-leaves were still a-tremble with dew. Pink cyc lamens and yellow amaryllis starred the moist brown earth; and under the cy press trees, where alleys had been cut in former time for pious feet, the short, firm turf was soft and mossy. Before bidding the hospitable padre farewell, and starting in our wagonette for Asciano, it was pleasant to meditate a while in these green solitudes. Generations of whitestoled monks who had sat or knelt upon the now deserted terraces, or had slowly paced the winding paths to Calvaries aloft and points of vantage high above the wood, rose up before me. My mind, still full of Bazzi's frescoes, peopled the wilderness with grave, monastic forms, and gracious, young-eyed faces of boyish novices. J. A. S. Tor EIGHT Dollars, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. 1 From The Contemporary Review. undertaking afresh on a broader and firmer footing. Satisfied with the result THE incessant comment and criticism, of his inquiries, and of the willingness of during the last few years, of the English, the sultan to continue and transfer the Continental, and Eastern press have testi- grants in question, Mr. Dent formed a fied to the interest felt in an undertaking private association to acquire the rights which, over and above its intrinsic im- they conferred; and to him and Baron portance, possessed no small dash of the von Overbeck as representing this assoromance of Eastern adventure. The story ciation, all the rights, titles, and interests of the British North Borneo Company of the American partnership were shortly had, however, been very imperfectly told afterwards transferred; the native princes in these fragmentary chapters. Neither readily acquiescing in the change, and the nature and extent of its grants from formally confirming to their new vassals the native princes, the diplomatic ques- the grants of territory, powers, and privitions to which they gave rise, nor the leges which have since been recognized condition and capabilities of the country in the royal charter. These grants pracand its inhabitants have been well under- tically delegate to the association, in the stood; while an undefined capacity for person of its chief representative, cominvolving us in future trouble has been plete sovereign powers over the whole attributed to the charter of incorpora- northern section of the island (known by tion, which has been freely discussed the local designation of Sabah), down to from this and other standpoints. The the Kimanis River on the west, and the papers recently laid before Parliament Sibuco on the east coast, with the immethrow a flood of light on the subject, and diately adjacent islands, a territory the complete explanation they afford of comprising in the aggregate some twenty the company's position and prospects will or twenty-five thousand square miles, with be generally welcome. a population variously estimated at from one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand souls, in consideration of the annual payment of $12,500, or, roughly speaking, about £2,400. The idea of developing the northern portion of Borneo by foreign energy and enterprise seems to have originated in the mind of a former United States consul at Brunei, who, so long ago as 1865, obtained from the sultan concessions of territory of a very similar scope and nature to those with which the British company is now dealing. This gentleman proceeded to form a commercial partnership, having its headquarters at Hong Kong, to carry out the design. But the enterprise did not flourish, chiefly from want of sufficient capital. The American Trading Company of Borneo, as it was called, entered upon some trading operations on the coast, and, with the assistance of Chinese workmen and coolies imported from Hong Kong, formed a settlement on the Kimanis River. But this broke up, after a few years' struggling existence; and the scheme had practically collapsed when, about 1876, it was suggested to Mr. Alfred Dent, the head of a British commercial house in London and China, that it might be worth while to buy up the lapsing rights and start the ---- There are in all five distinct leases. Two, from the sultan of Brunei, relate to districts in the north-west; another, from his prime minister and heir apparent, to a tract in the same neighborhood declared to be his private property; while a fourth, also from the sultan, leases the territory on the east coast from the river Paitan to the Sibuco.. The Brunei grants, in fact, convey the whole territory now in posses. sion of the company; and comprise, as we have said before, the northern portion of the island, from the Kimanis River (in about 5° 25′ N.) on the west, to the Sibuco (in about 4° N.) on the east, with the exception of a few small and unimportant districts which, it is apprehended, can be obtained without difficulty when desired. The sultan of Brunei, however, if the chief, was not the only potentate concerned. The sultan of the neighboring archipelago of Sulu claimed a rival, if in some degree subordinate, right over |