his own way, an admirable example.

You open his book--a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Lying indeed! Why, you
hate prevarication. As for murder, your friends know you too well to
mention the subject in your hearing, except in immediate connection
with capital punishment. You are, of course, willing to make some
allowance for Cellini's time and place--the first half of the
sixteenth century and Italy. 'Yes,' you remark, 'Cellini shall have
strict justice at my hands.' So you say as you settle yourself in your
chair and begin to read. We seem to hear the rascal laughing in his
grave. His spirit breathes upon you from his book--peeps at you
roguishly as you turn the pages. His atmosphere surrounds you; you
smile when you ought to frown, chuckle when you should groan, and--O
final triumph!--laugh aloud when, if you had a rag of principle left,
you would fling the book into the fire. Your poor moral sense turns
away with a sigh, and patiently awaits the conclusion of the second
volume.

How cautiously does he begin, how gently does he win your ear by his
seductive piety! I quote from Mr. Roscoe's translation:--

'It is a duty incumbent on upright and credible men of all ranks, who
have performed anything noble or praiseworthy, to record, in their own
writing, the events of their lives; yet they should not commence this
honourable task before they have passed their fortieth year. Such, at
least, is my opinion, now that I have completed my fifty-eighth year,
and am settled in Florence, where, considering the numerous ills that
constantly attend human life, I perceive that I have never before been
so free from vexations and calamities, or possessed of so great a
share of content and health as at this period. Looking back on some