What a liar was Benvenuto Cellini!--who can believe a word he says?
To hang a dog on his oath would be a judicial murder. Yet when we lay
down his Memoirs and let our thoughts travel back to those far-off
days he tells us of, there we see him standing, in bold relief,
against the black sky of the past, the very man he was. Not more
surely did he, with that rare skill of his, stamp the image of Clement
VII. on the papal currency than he did the impress of his own singular
personality upon every word he spoke and every sentence he wrote.

We ought, of course, to hate him, but do we? A murderer he has written
himself down. A liar he stands self-convicted of being. Were anyone in
the nether world bold enough to call him thief, it may be doubted
whether Rhadamanthus would award him the damages for which we may be
certain he would loudly clamour. Why do we not hate him? Listen to
him:

'Upon my uttering these words, there was a general outcry, the
noblemen affirming that I promised too much. But one of them, who was
a great philosopher, said in my favour, "From the admirable symmetry
of shape and happy physiognomy of this young man, I venture to engage
that he will perform all he promises, and more." The Pope replied, "I
am of the same opinion;" then calling Trajano, his gentleman of the
bed-chamber, he ordered him to fetch me five hundred ducats.'

And so it always ended; suspicions, aroused most reasonably, allayed
most unreasonably, and then--ducats. He deserved hanging, but he died
in his bed. He wrote his own memoirs after a fashion that ought to
have brought posthumous justice upon him, and made them a literary
gibbet, on which he should swing, a creaking horror, for all time; but