One cannot be too careful in accepting traditions about artists or their works. The public invents its facts, and believes what it invents. Very few of the pleasing anecdotes connected with artists will bear critical examination, any more than the famous sayings attributed on great occasions to extraordinary men; still the grand phrase of Cambronne is as gravely repeated in history as if it had some foundation in fact, and everybody believes that Da Vinci died in the arms of Francis I. Perhaps it is scarcely worth while to break up such pleasant traditions, and certainly the public resists such attempts. It is so delightful to think that the gallant and accomplished King of France supported the great Italian artist, and soothed his last moments, that it seems sheer brutality to dissipate such an illusion; yet, unfortunately, we know that Leonardo died at Cloux, near Amboise, on May 2, 1679,—and from a journal kept by the king, and still (disgracefully enough) existing in the imperial library in Paris, we know that on that very day he held his Court at St. Germain-en-Laye; and besides this, Lomazzo distinctly tells us that the king first heard the news of Leonardo’s death from Melzi; while Melzi himself, who wrote to Leonardo’s friend immediately after his death, makes no mention of such a fact. But to return from this digression to a consideration of the list of works attributed to Phidias. We have already seen that in regard to six of the statues there are, to say the least, strong doubts as to his authorship; but still more must be eliminated. The Zeus of the Olympieum at Megara “is said,” according to Pausanias, “to have been made by Theocosmos, with the assistance of Phidias.” This again is mere tradition, which is so weak that it only pretends that Phidias assisted Theocosmos. Phidias assisting Theocosmos has a strange sound; and it is plain that Theocosmos is the real author of this statue, even granting that the great master may have helped the lesser one.