Page:Selection of amusing and entertaining Irish stories.pdf/17

17 them, “ Alas ! how far distant is this from Guidotto's !” At length, however, he had the satisfaction of becoming sensible of progress ; and having received considerable applause on account of one of his performances, he ventured to say to himself, “And why may not I too become a Guidotto?”

Meanwhile, Guidotto continued to bear away the palm from all competitors. Brunello struggled awhile to contest with him ; but at length gave up the point, and consoled himself, under his inferiority, by ill-natured sarcasm and petulant criticism. Lorenzo worked away in silence, and it was long before his modesty would suffer him to place any piece of his in view at the same time with one of Guidotto’s.

There was a certain day in the year in which it was customary for all the scholars to exhibit their best performance in a public hall, where their merit was solemnly judged by a number of select examiners, and a prize of value was awarded to the most excellent. Guidotto had prepared for this anniversary a piece which was to excel all ho had ever before executed. He had just finished it on the evening before the exhibition, and nothing remained but to heighten the colouring by means of a transparent varnish. The malignant Brunello contrived artfully to convey into the phial containing the varnish some drops of a caustic preparation, the effect of which would be entirely to destroy the beauty and splendour of the piece. Guidotto laid it on by candle light, and then with great satisfaction hung up his picture in the public room against the morrow. Lorenzo, too, with beating heart, had prepared himself for the day. With vast application he had finished a piece which he humbly hoped might appear not greatly inferior to some of Guidotto’s earlier performances.

The important day was now arrived. The company assembled, and were introduced into the great room, where the light had just been fully admitted by drawing up a curtain. All went up with raised expectations to Guidotto’s picture, when, behold ! instead of the brilliant beauty they had conceived, there was nothing but a dead surface of confused and blotched colours. “Surely,” they cried, “this cannot be Guidotto’s !” The unfortunate youth himself came up, and, on beholding the dismal change of his favourite piece, burst out into an agony of grief, and exclaimed that he was betrayed and undone. The vile Brunello in a corner was enjoying his distress. But Lorenzo was little less affected than Guidotto himself. “Trick! knavery !” he cried. “ Indeed, gentlemen, this is not Guidotto’s work. I saw it when only half finished, and it was a most charming performance. Look at the outline, and judge what it must have been before it was so basely injured.”