It is deemed appropriate to devote this page to the infelicities which often fall to the lot of men of genius, in hopes to strike a sympathetic chord; since to them the world owes all that is beautiful as well as useful in art. It is well known that men of fine imaginations and delicate taste, are generally distinguished for acute sensibilities, and for being deficient in more practical qualities; they are frequently eccentric, and illy adapted to contend with the coldness and indifference of the world, much less its sarcasm and enmity. The history of Art is full of melancholy examples. When Torregiano, the cotemporary of Michael Angelo, had finished his exquisite group of the Madonna and Child for the Duke d’Arcos, with the assurance of a rich reward, the nobleman sent two servants, bearing two well-filled bags of money, with orders to bring the work to his palace. The sculptor, upon opening the bags, found nothing but brass maravedi! Filled with just indignation, he seized his mallet, in a moment of uncontrollable rage, and smashed the beautiful group into a thousand pieces, saying to the servants, “Go, take your base metal to your ignoble lord, and tell him he shall never possess a sculpture by my hand!” The infamous nobleman, burning with shame, resolved on a terrible revenge; he arraigned the unhappy artist before the Inquisition, on a charge of sacrilege for destroying the sacred images. Torregiano was imprisoned and condemned to death by torture; but to escape that awful fate, he destroyed himself in the dungeon.