Page:The Life of Benvenuto Cellini Vol 1.djvu/69

Rh yeoman's duty as a gunner all through the period of the sack of Rome. In consequence of his excellent soldiership, Orazio Baglioni offered him the captaincy of a band in the army he was collecting for the defence of Florence. Now Bourbon had been shot dead in the assault of Rome upon that foggy morning, and Cellini had certainly discharged his arquebuse from the ramparts. Always posing as a hero in his own eyes, he was gratified to obtain some colour for the supposition that one of his unerring balls had done the deed. If it were possible to put his thoughts about this event into a syllogism, it would run as follows: "Somebody shot Bourbon; I shot somebody; being what I am, I am inclined to think the somebody I shot was Bourbon."

Many of the odd things related by Cellini can be classified as things which really took place, like the accident of the scorpion and the tremendous hailstorm he encountered in the neighbourhood of Lyons. Others may be referred to common superstition. I will choose the instance of the salamander, which has often been brought up against him. Here he only informs us that his father gave him a good box on the ears, in order that he might not forget the occasion when he saw something in a wood-fire which his father took for a salamander. Not a few of the most striking of his presumed lies turn out, upon inspection, like those of Herodotus, to be simply the best evidence of his veracity. That is to say, when we examine them we find that he had been recording actual phenomena with more than usual powers of observation, but without the power