on themselves nevertheless to interpret and
continue the heroic Greek art. There were young painters with the strongest
natural taste for low humour, comic singing, and Cider-Cellar jollifications,
who would imitate nothing under Michael Angelo, and whose canvases teemed with
tremendous allegories of fates, furies, genii of death and battle. There were
long-haired lads who fancied the sublime lay in the Peruginesque manner, and
depicted saintly personages with crisp draperies, crude colours, and halos of
gold-leaf. Our friend marked: all these practitioners of Art with their various
oddities and tastes, and was welcomed in the ateliers of all of them, from the
grave dons and seniors, the senators of the French and English Academy, down to
the jovial students who railed at the elders over their cheap cups at the Lepre.
What a gallant starving, generous, kindly life many of them led! What fun in
their grotesque airs, what friendship and gentleness in their poverty! How
splendidly Carlo talked of the marquis his cousin and the duke his intimate
friend! How great Federigo was on the subject of his wrongs from the Academy at
home, a pack of tradesmen who could not understand high art, and who had never
seen a good picture! With what haughtiness Augusto swaggered about at Sir John's
soirées, though he was known to have borrowed Fernando's coat and Luigi's
dress-boots! If one or the other was ill, how nobly and generously his
companions flocked to comfort him, took turns to nurse the sick man through
nights of fever, contributed out of their slender means to help him through his
difficulty. Max, who loves fine dresses and the carnival so, gave up a costume
and a carriage so as to help Paul. Paul, when he sold his picture (through the
agency of Pietro, with whom he had quarrelled, and who recommended him to a
patron), gave a third of the money back to Max, and took another third portion
to Lozaro, with his poor wife and children, who had not got a single order all
that winter; and so the story went on. I have heard Clive tell of two noble
young Americans who came to Europe to study their art, of whom the one fell
sick, whilst the other supported his penniless comrade, and out of sixpence a
day absolutely kept but a penny for himself, giving the rest to his sick
companion. »I should like to have known that good Samaritan, sir,« our Colonel
said, twirling his mustachios, when we saw him again, and his son told him that
story.