Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 1.djvu/39

Rh serious consequence. The late John Addington Symonds was at some pains to demonstrate that Cellini was neither base nor a liar. He made out an excellent case for his hero, and it were ungracious to quarrel with his conclusions, for Symonds not only made the best translation of the Autobiography that has ever been produced, but was so saturated with his subject through years of preoccupation with Italian art and history that his opinion necessarily carries great weight. Yet there are passages in Cellini's life which it is idle to estimate as having any justification whatever in morals, and I cannot for the life of me see why, in the circumstances, we should assume that he was not, when occasion demanded, a rousing good liar. Why should he not have been a liar? Is a man who is capable of malicious mischief, of murder, and of ways of living which are perhaps better left unmentioned, any the better company because he always told the truth, or any the worse because he now and then lied? The question is immaterial. It is not by a careful balancing of his virtues and his vices that we get nearer to Cellini, and the more willing to enjoy his book. The only thing to do is to accept once and for all the fact that manners and morals in the sixteenth century were totally different from morals and manners in our own, and then to approach Benvenuto Cellini as a human being. Our examination of his work as an artist has shown clearly enough that he was no demi-god. Perusal of the Autobiography only makes us the more sure of