by passion, or characterised by bold originality and reach of power, yet the work he did do is eminently faithful, admirably executed, and informed by knowledge as well as feeling. His artistic honesty cannot be too highly praised. He spared no pains to make his work as perfect as his powers would permit. He had an accurate eye, a remarkable talent for modelling from nature, and an indefatigable perseverance. He never lent his hand to low, paltry, and unworthy work. Art and religion went hand in hand in all he did. He sought for the beautiful and the noble—sought it everywhere with an inquiring and susceptible spirit; despised the brutal, the low, and the trifling; never truckled to popularity, or sought for fame unworthily; and scorned to degrade his art by sensuality. As the man was, so his work was—pure, refined, faithful to nature and to his own nature. He pandered to no low passions; he modelled no form, he drew no line, that dying he could wish to blot; and the world of Art is better that he has lived. While he bent his head to Nature, the whole stress of his life as an artist was to realise his favourite motto, "Il vero nel bello"—the true in the beautiful.

His last letter, written only three days before his final attack, was addressed to his friend Professor Giambattista Giuliani, and as it breathes the whole spirit of the man, it may form a fit conclusion to these few words: "My excellent friend,—We also, Amalia and I, wish you truly from our hearts, now and always, every good from our blessed God—perfect health, elevation of spirit, serene affections, peace of heart in the contemplation of the beautiful and the good, and the immortal hope of a future life, that supreme good that the modern Sadducees deny—unhappy beings!"

W. W. STORY.

PREFACE.

"Do you know," I said to a friend six months ago, while I was looking over the rough draft of my memoirs, "that I have decided to print them?" "You will do well," he answered; "but you must write a preface—a bit of a preface is necessary." "I do not think so," I said. "In my opinion the few words on the first page will suffice." My friend read over the first page and replied, "That's enough."

Now, however, a couple of words do not seem to me superfluous,—first, in order that I may express my surprise and pleasure that my book, written just as it came to me, has been received with so much kindness; and then to explain that this second edition has been enlarged by some additions and necessary notes. The additions do not form an appendix, but are inserted in the chapters, each in its proper place.

It did not seem advisable to me, as it did to some other persons, to enlarge this book by letters, documents, and other writings of mine. I thought this would interfere with the simplicity and brevity of my first plan.

In re-reading this book, I admit that I have found passages here and there which I felt tempted to correct, or rather to polish and improve in style, but I have let them go. Who knows that I should not have made them worse? It seems to me (perhaps I am wrong) not to perceive in good writers the labour, the smoothing, and the transposition of words, and so on, but a rapid and broad embodiment of the idea in the words that were born with it.

One last and most essential word I have reserved for the end as a bonne bouche. Some persons have excusably and pleasantly observed that to write a book about one's self while the author is living is both very difficult and rather immodest. I replied to them, both by word of mouth and through the press, that although on account of my life and works I had studied to be as temperate and unpretentious as the truth and the facts would allow, still here and there my narrative with regard to some persons might not be agreeable, and therefore after my death it might be discredited or denied. No, this must not be, I said, and say again. I am alive, and am here to correct everything at variance with the truth, and also (I wish to be just) what is wanting in chivalrousness.

NOTE BY TRANSLATOR.

In making the present translation of the Memoirs of Giovanni Duprè, one of two courses had to be taken—either to turn the whole into pure idiomatic English, or to follow, with a certain degree of literalness, the peculiar forms of expression, and the characteristic style, or absence of style, of the original. I have chosen the latter course, in order, as far as in me lay, to convey the individuality of the author, and the local colour and character of his book. This would to a great degree have been lost had I attempted to render into purely English idiom a work that is not only written in a careless, familiar, and conversational form, and abounds in turns of expression which are essentially Florentine, but derives its interest, in part at least, from this very peculiarity.

E. M. P.

CONTENTS.