his sense of the vanity of the world simply because the world
is passing out of his reach, the regretful memory of the pleasures
of his youth, the envious spite towards Gandolf, who robbed him of
the best position for a tomb, and the dread lest his reputed sons
should play him false and fail to carry out his designs,
are united with a perfect appreciation of Renaissance art,
and a luxurious satisfaction, which even a death-bed cannot destroy,
in the splendor of voluptuous form and color. The great lump
of lapis lazuli,

"`Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast',

must poise between his sculptured knees; the black basalt
must contrast with the bas-relief in bronze below: --

"`St. Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off';

the inscription must be `choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word'."




A Toccata of Galuppi's.



The speaker is listening to a Toccata of Galuppi's, and the music tells him
of how they lived once in Venice, where the merchants were the kings.