Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 1.djvu/62

Rh commended himself to the Divine protection. Homicide, indeed, was then considered a venial error, and several incidents might be cited from this autobiography proving that men devoted to the religious life screened murderers red-handed after the commission of what we should regard not merely as criminal, but also as dastardly deeds of violence.

Among Cellini's faults I do not reckon either baseness or lying. He was not a rogue, and he meant to be veracious. This contradicts the commonplace and superficial view of his character so flatly that I must support my opinion at some length. Of course, I shall not deny that a fellow endowed with such overweening self-conceit, when he comes to write about himself, will set down much which cannot be taken entirely on trust. His personal annals will never rank as historical material with the Venetian Despatches, however invaluable the student of manners may find them. Men of his stamp are certain to exaggerate their own merits, and to pass lightly over things not favourable to the ideal they present. But this is very different from lying; and of calculated mendacity Cellini stands almost universally accused. I believe that view to be mistaken. So far as I have learned to know him, so far as I have caught his accent and the intonation of his utterance, I hold him for a most veracious man. His veracity was not of the sort which is at present current. It had no hypocrisy or simulation in it, but a large dose of vainglory with respect to his