Having learned prosperously how to manage gold, he takes a fancy to know how to manage colour; and is put by his good father under, as it chanced, the best master in Florence, or the world, at that time--the Monk Lippi, whose work is the finest, out and out, that ever monk did; which I attribute, myself, to what is usually considered faultful in him,--his having run away with a pretty novice out of a convent. I am not jesting, I assure you, in the least; but how can I possibly help the nature of things, when that chances to be laughable? Nay, if you think of it, perhaps you will not find it so laughable that Lippi should be the only monk (if this be a fact), who ever did good painter's work. Be that as it may, Lippi and his pupil were happy in each other; and the boy soon became a smiter of colour, or colour-smith, no less than a gold-smith; and eventually an "Alexander the Coppersmith," also, not inimical to St. Paul, and for whom Christian people may wish, not revengefully, "the Lord reward him according to his works," though he was fain, Demetrius-like, sometimes to shrine Diana. And he painted, for a beginning, a figure of Fortitude; and then, one of St. Jerome, and then, one of our Lady, and then, one of Pallas, and then, one of Venus with the Graces and Zephyrs, and especially the Spring aforesaid with flowery petticoats; and, finally, the Assumption of our Lady, with the Patriarchs, the Prophets, the Apostles, the Evangelists, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Doctors, the Virgins, and the Hierarchies. It is to be presumed that by this time he had learned to read, though we hear nothing of it, (rather the contrary, for he is taunted late in life with rude scholarship,)--and then paints under notable circumstances, of which presently, the calling of Moses, and of Aaron, and of Christ,--all well preserved and wonderful pieces, which no person now ever thinks of looking at, though they are the best works of pictorial divinity extant in Europe. And having thus obtained great honour and reputation, and considerable sums of money, he squandered all the last away; and then, returning to Florence, set himself to comment upon and illustrate Dante, engraving some plates for that purpose which I will try to give you a notion of, some day. And at this time, Savonarola beginning to make himself heard, and founding in Florence the company of the Piagnoni, (Mourners, or Grumblers, as opposed to the men of pleasure,) Sandro made a Grumbler of himself, being then some forty years old; and,--his new master being burned in the great square of Florence, a year afterwards (1498),--became a Grumbler to purpose; and doing what he could to show "che cosa è la fede," namely, in engraving Savonarola's "Triumph of Faith," fell sadder, wiser, and poorer, day by day; until he became a poor bedesman of Lorenzo de' Medici; and having gone some time on crutches, being unable to stand upright, and received his due share of what I hope we