From Blackwood's Magazine. could be more appropriate than this occupation of the halcyon years which every "ALL men of every class, who have laboring man seems to have a right to done something creditable, ought, being before the end. We follow the calm days trustworthy and honest men, to write their of their retired leisure with a pleasant lives with their own hand," says the great sense of fitness. It is seemly and natural artist and extraordinary personage whose that they should discourse to us seated in name stands at the head of this page. the easy-chair of old age, which is a natNo words more fit could be found with ural throne and pulpit; and the old man's which to begin the discussion of a class narrative of his youth has a tender inof books which, if not altogether so valu- terest, a suppressed and gentle pathos, able as Ser Benvenuto considers them, which goes to our hearts. But it is only have supplied many excellent and more a few who have this blessed and beautiful amusing pages to general history.. If his old age. The majority of men carry their advice had been largely followed, it would cares with them to the very brink of the scarcely be hyperbole to say that the grave, and only get rid of their burden world would not contain the volumes that when the shoulders fail under it: indeed might have been written- -so that we the majority of men do not live to old age may conclude ourselves fortunate that the at all, and so have neither the means nor impulse only comes to one now and then; its seclusion and calm. Sometimes yet we have no doubt it comes to a great the opportunity of giving us the benefit of many who never get the length of auto- the will and all surrounding circumstances biography. When old age arrives gently being in favor of the intended revelation and pleasantly, — when the man who has - it is postponed too long, till the hand lived an active and important life finds falls powerless and the memory is insuffihimself, without much pain, and with cient to the task. Sometimes just enough many consolations of comfort, and honor, is accomplished to make us feel the exceland observance, put aside from it, and lence of the method, when the pen drops left with a long and wealthy past behind from the feeble fingers, and has to be him, and a somewhat impoverished pres- taken up by somebody who knows the ent thinly filling its place, it is a very subject only as others know it, from outnatural impulse which bids him find side, seeing the mountains like molehills, amusement and companionship for his and upsetting the perspective of events. old age in making the great public his But yet we have a sufficiently large list of confidant, and telling his own story to the completed and finished efforts to show vague crowds whom he will never see, but their value; and it is an instructive and in whom imagination represents to him somewhat sad pleasure for the student of many an unknown friend and sympathetic human nature to watch those shadows as soul. Whatever there may be of humilia- they appear before him, each anxious to tion in the sense that he has found him-give the best account of itself, some in self, or, still worse, that others have found serene human unconsciousness thrusting him, no longer fit for the charge he has so their own little tale of events between him long held, is softened by the conscious- and the history of the world, finding their ness that he can leave behind a record of infant or their apple-tree of more impor many things worth knowing, clear up, per- tance than the convulsions of nations. haps, some historical mysteries of his Still even an apple-tree, the wonderful period, and keep the incidents of his own crop upon which so excites its owner as life alive among men. An old statesman to confuse his apprehension of the impor in his dignified retirement, an old priest tance of the greatest public event, is of in the quiet of his parsonage or his cell, use in its way as revealing that undercur an old author whose inventions are over, rent of peaceable life which streams seand who finds his experiences more inter-renely on, whatever storms may convulse esting to himself than any effort of ro- the air, and which is the real secret of the spectator feels that nothing national continuance. So long as that mance goes on unaffected, the heart of a country | frankness of his self-revelation. In both these points he is as remarkable as in his genius, which is saying much - for he was an admirable artist, inexhaustible in fancy, and full of the truest instinct, as well as the most swaggering of gallants, the fiercest of swordsmen, the most choleric of egotists. Involuntarily as we rush through his stormy narrative, another figure comes and stands beside us, suggested by the contrast, the neat and trim figure, in periwig and ruffles, of our English model of secret biography, the demure and cunning, yet sagacious and genial Pepys. Nothing can be more unlike the complaisant murmuring of his own peccadilloes to his own bosom, of that most graphic and subtle commentator, his half-amused yet half-remorseful is safe though its throne should be upset a hundred times. Thus the narrowest domestic record widers our experience of human nature, which, of all things involved, changes least from one generation to another; and the spectacle of its insensibility to the great catastrophes and revolutions going on around, its calm perseverance in its own way though the pillars of the earth should be shaken, is as interesting and instructive as any other part of the perennial drama. To see how little agitated is the race even when it is agitated most, to listen to a soft little love-strain singing itself to all the gentle echoes under the very horrors and fierce excitements of the French Revolution, and to know that the least misadventure of his son Tom was more important to a confessions, all under strictest lock and village chronicler than the tragic exit of "the martyr Charles" or the coming of "the hero William," are curious revelations; but they fill up - better even than those narratives of the back stairs and records of all the underplots that influence a great event, to which the world is so much addicted the full and catholic story of human life. Thus, whether it is the exciting recollections of one who has been involved in imperial events, and holds the clue of historical secrets, or the calm narrative of the rustic, over whose head these events have passed without ever disturbing his honest rest, every personal experience adds to our knowledge. Manners and customs alter, governments are turned upside down, laws are modified or overthrown, but man remains the same from age to age. And there is no better way of recognizing ourselves as brothers across the continents and centuries than by those individual chronicles which carry the chain of kindred feeling from one generation to another without any material change. key, than the dashing strut and brag of the Florentine, whose passions, both of violence and love, are set before us without a thought of apology or any consciousness of offence, and who professedly intends for the public eye the astounding record of a life spent in brawls and turmoils, in which his hand was against every man, and his own capricious liking the sole rule of his conduct. It is the air of reality about both men which brings them together in our fancy, Pepys, with his leer of demure hypocrisy outside, and unabashed self-knowledge within; and Benvenuto, with his unbounded vanity, his hot temper, his brag and bluster, as true to the fashion of the fierce citizen-artist of the Middle Ages in turbulent Italy, as the other is to that of the judicious and wary official standing between a licentious court and a still partially Puritanical public, and doing his best to serve God and Mammon, with a half-humorous consciousness of the difficulties of that undertaking. Both men are perfectly frank; to both, their own interests and pleasures are supreme; and both have a sense of what is When we begin our series with such a best, in their own way at least, — Pepys bizarre figure as that of Benvenuto Cel- being invariably honest, and a supporter lini, we strain this link of human resem- of honesty, in the most corrupt of ages; blance almost as far as it can be strained while all Benvenuto's virulence of temper for to tell the truth, there are not many and sense of personal superiority never like him, either in the stormy self-suffi- blind him to excellence in art. But we ciency of his nature, or the undaunted | need not follow a comparison which is not so much a comparison as a contrast. For | while, on the other hand, he is as willing while Pepys speaks under his breath, with to work the guns of St. Angelo as to mantraditional finger on his lip, with an age the fine tools of the goldsmith, has alarmed enjoyment of his own candor, yet his hand on his sword at every suspicion mischievous delight in the thought that it of offence, and finds his natural place in can never be profitable to anybody else, every commotion, public or private. How Benvenuto's determination is to proclaim he contrived during this storm of exist everything, so that even the deaf may ence to execute so much fine, delicate, and hear, and nobody suppose that he is not elaborate work, is a problem most difficult ready to stand to any one of his actions. to solve. His art is precisely that which Not a word that is sotto voce comes from we should imagine to have most urgently his hasty lips; his artifices are as frankly demanded unbounded quiet, protection, set forth as his amours, and his murders and peace; but he never rested, quarrelled are accomplished in an open-handed and with every patron he ever had, found matter-of-course way, with which con- rivals and enemies wherever he went, and science evidently has nothing to do. He made them where he had them not, — yet neither considers himself blamable, nor all the while went on elaborating the finest expects to be so considered by others, on and minutest work, doubling the value of account of a rival stabbed or a light love the precious metals in which he worked, superseded. These are the customs of making of a salt-cellar a prize for which his time, with which no code of morals princes contended; though all the while has anything to do. What he gives us is a flinging out and in of these same princes' record, not a justification, far less an apol- audience chambers, too touchy to be cenogy, for conduct in which there is nothing sured, too hasty to be guided — a very to be ashamed of so far as he is aware, tempest of a man. This combination of but rather a great deal to applaud, since endless industry with perpetual interruphis always prompt and ready action proves tions seems the test of the capacity of the him a man who never loses an opportu- mediæval artist. Perhaps in strict point nity, never spares an opponent, or relin- of date we are wrong in applying this quishes a pleasure. title to the favorite workman of the advanced Renaissance; but Benvenuto, though he had the advantage of classic models and the new spirit, is in himself as much a man of the Middle Ages as if he had lived two centuries earlier. And though dukes were necessary to his trade, and luxury the very breath of his artist being, yet wherever he went-in the pope's chapel or in the French king's gay and splendid court - he was always the same high-handed Florentine, arrogant and dauntless, who might have headed a tumult in the days of the Bianchi and Neri, or brawled in a Parlamento, or schemed and struggled with the fuorusciti. We cannot say that the character is an amiable or even an upright one, but its force and picturesque tumultuous energy are not to be gainsaid. The picture of his time which he sets before us is of the most animated description. It is full of kings and emperors, and reigning dukes and princes - even the pope himself in all his impious grandeur, with his train of sons and parasites, sweeping by times across the scene; and in the busy streets a swarm of lesser men -painters, goldsmiths, artificers of every kind, even the carpenter singing at his work; but in the front of all, and making even popes and emperors subordinate to his restless, daring personality, this same Benvenuto, the greatest genius in his way, the readiest hand, the keenest tongue, Most forward still In every deed or good or ill,fearing neither cardinal nor bravo. Noth- And this rapidity and precipitate force ing is extenuate in the bold record. He of life are all the more remarkable that is ready to answer Pope Paul himself, and | Benvenuto wrote not in the fire of his to rate the great Francis, and to tell the youth, but when years had whitened his Medici that they know nothing of art; | head if not subdued his spirit. He him 66 He make himself with his wife's fortune! If it is true, as you have boasted, that I am good for something, cannot I provide for my wife and satisfy her needs with less money than you ask? I give you to wit that it is the girl that is my desire, and the money yours." At this Andrea, who was self lays it down as a rule that those | Giovanni's heart. When the youth's senwho follow his advice as to writing their timents became known, as the two own lives should not take up "this fine fathers, from their close neighborhood, enterprise" till they have passed the age know each other well, it was easy to, conof forty. He himself was approaching clude the alliance; but first there was a fifty-eight," when, "being in Florence, conversation about the dot-that most my native place, and contemplating the necessary preliminary. Ser Andrea, on contrarieties that happen to all," at a the one side, boasted of his son that he moment when he felt himself more free was the best youth in all Florence - nay, from those contrarieties than he had ever in Italy- - and worthy of the best-dowered been before, and blessed with more "con- bride; to which Ser Stefano replied, with tent of mind and vigor of body' "than he amiable yet slightly sarcastic acquieshad ever known, he set about the compo- cence, "Thou art right a thousand times; sition of his memoirs. But it is evident but I have five girls, and many sons bethat he was one of those who never grow sides; and, reckoning all things, this and old; and the narrative of his declining that is as far as I can go." Young Gioyears is still hot and hasty, with all the vanni, with the impatience of a lover, had force of youth. been listening unseen; and, mild as he The beginning of the story is very char- was for a Cellini, he was not without acteristic. Although," he says, "such something of the family vivacity. men as have by their endeavors given sprang out of his hiding-place while the assurance of the valor that is in them, old men talked, and broke in upon their ought to be satisfied with being generally negotiations. "Oh, my father," he cried, known and recognized as men of merit," it is the girl I love and long for, and not yet we ought at the same time to do as their money. Woe to him who would others do; and as the curiosity of the world directs itself to certain points, the first of which is to know whether we derive our blood from persons of ancient and virtuous descent, I am Benvenuto Cellini, son of Giovanni, of Andrea, of Cristofano Cellini"-and so forth through many generations. Whether we are intended to conclude that the Roman officer Florentius of Cellino, after whom, he declares, Julius Cæsar named the city of Florence, was a direct ancestor, is not quite apparent; but as this hero is brought into the story without rhyme or reason, it may be permitted to us to believe that this is the purpose of his introduction. Enough, however, for all reasonable uses are the three generations of immediate progenitors, who are more easily identified. Cristofano, the first of these, was sent to Florence by his family from the Val d'Ambra, in consequence of a quarrel between him and the son of a neighboring house, which threatened to involve both families. The blood of Cellini thus came hot to Florence, with all the choleric quality which descended to Cristofano's great-grandson. Giovanni, the father of Benvenuto, seems to have been of milder mould. He was a great musician, a good artist, and a disinterested lover, as the following pretty story proves. Next door to the Cellini in Via Chiara, vicino a muro, wall to wall, lived a certain Stefano Granacci, with many fair daughters, and among them one, Elisabetta by name, who took young a little odd," un po' bizzarretto, like the rest of them, drew back in high dudgeon. "But a few days after, Giovanni brought home his bride, and asked no fortune with her." This way of making a marriage was no doubt deeply ridiculous, not to say wicked, to the two keen old Florentines, whom one can see in their doorways in the cool of the evening, settling down to a comfortable struggle over the settlements, so to speak, when the hotheaded youngster broke in with his folly, thinking of nothing but Elisabetta. Ser Andrea, the bizzarretto, choleric like his race, flings off in a fury; but Stefano, more wise, seeing his own advantage, laughs in his sleeve, and lets the young couple have their way. With five girls to provide for, he was no doubt well pleased to marry one without a dot; and thus a world of warm human passion, generous love, and hot temper, and wary calculation comes out before us at a word. In an equally pretty scene the name of the great Benvenuto is accounted for. Madonna Elisabetta had no children for eighteen years, though very desirous of that doubtful blessing. After that time they came in quick succession. eldest child was a girl, and by various Her signs she had made up her mind that the | making a musician of his boy-who was second would be a girl too. The very taught to play the flute and to sing from name was decided upon. She was to be Reparata, per rifare la madre di mia madre. The nurse, however, who knew that they looked for a girl, when she had washed the creatura and wrapped it in beautiful white clothes, came softly (cheta cheta) to Giovanni, my father, and said, "I bring a beautiful present which you don't expect." My father, who was a true philosopher, was pacing about the room; he said, "Whatever God sends me is always dear to me," and, opening the coverings, saw the unexpected boy; then, joining his palms, he raised them and his eyes to God, and said, "Lord, I thank thee with all my heart. This one is very dear to me, and very welcome (2 sia il Benvenuto)." All who were present joyfully asked him what name he would give me. Giovanni made them no answer but this, "E sia il Benvenuto;" and this accordingly was the name given me in holy baptism, and which I have lived to bear with the grace of God. Benvenuto does not dwell much upon his childhood; but one incident of it is often quoted. "When I was about five," he says, "my father was in a little room where the great wash had been going on, and where there was a good fire of oak wood. Giovanni, with a violin on his arm, was playing and singing, according to his custom, beside the fire. It was very cold, and looking at the fire he saw by accident in the midst of the hottest glow a little animal like a lizard playing in the flames. As soon as he perceived what it was, he called my sister and me, and showing it to us children, gave me a great cuff, at which I immediately began to cry. He soothed me gently, saying to me, My dear little son, I have done this not for a punishment, but to make thee remember that this lizard thou hast seen in the fire is a salamander, which has never been seen by any one before, so far as can be known with certainty;' and saying this, he kissed me and gave me a few pennies." This wonderful story is not supported by any further testimony, and must be 66 "The his earliest years, though much against At this time I was of tender years, and my father carried me in on his shoulder, and made me play the flute and take soprano parts with the musicians of the palace, before the Signoria, with a little badge round my neck. The Gonfaloniere, who was the said Soderini, took great pleasure in hearing me chatter, and gave me sweetmeats, and said to my father, "Messer Giovanni, teach him your other beautiful arts as well as music." To which my father replied, "I do not wish him to do anything but play and compose music; for in that profession I believe I can make him the first in the world, if God spares him." To these words one of the old Signori replied, "Ah, Messer Giovanni, do what the Gonfaloniere bids you. The excellent father, who thus lost no Why should he never be anything better than opportunity of instructing his child, was a a fiddler?"... When these words were told not only excellent in architecture, which to me, I entreated my father to allow me to was his hereditary profession, but also a draw so many hours a day, and all the rest I "Then playing is great musician and maker of musical in- would play to satisfy him. no pleasure to thee?" he said. To which I struments. My father made organs with wonderful pipes of wood, and cym-art in comparison with that which I had in my answered no, since it appeared to me a vile bals, the best and most beautiful that had head. My good father, in despair, put me ever been seen, violins, lutes, and beauti- into the shop of the father of the Cavaliere ful harps." It was not wonderful, then, Bandinello, a goldsmith in Pinzi di Monte; that he should have set his heart upon... but when I had been there a few days, he taken on Benvenuto's word. 66 |