certainly not recognisable as a man. This is generally the fault of
their editors, who, though men themselves, confine their editorial
duties to going up and down the diaries and papers of the departed
saint, and obliterating all human touches. This they do for the
'better prevention of scandals;' and one cannot deny that they attain
their end, though they pay dearly for it.

I shall never forget the start I gave when, on reading some old book
about India, I came across an after-dinner jest of Henry Martyn's. The
thought of Henry Martyn laughing over the walnuts and the wine was
almost, as Robert Browning's unknown painter says, 'too wildly dear;'
and to this day I cannot help thinking that there must be a mistake
somewhere.

To return to Cellini, and to conclude. On laying down his 'Memoirs,'
let us be careful to recall our banished moral sense, and make peace
with her, by passing a final judgment on this desperate sinner, which
perhaps, after all, we cannot do better than by employing language of
his own concerning a monk, a fellow-prisoner of his, who never, so far
as appears, murdered anybody, but of whom Cellini none the less felt
himself entitled to say:

'I admired his shining qualities, but his odious vices I freely
censured and held in abhorrence.'




THE VIA MEDIA.