For profit of the common people, Virgilius on a great mighty marble pillar, did make a bridge that came up to the palace, and so went Virgilius well up the pillar out of the palace; that palace and pillar stood in the midst of Rome; and upon this pillar made he a lamp of glass that always burned without going out, and nobody might put it out; and this lamp lightened over all the city of Rome from the one corner to the other, and there was not so little a street but it gave such light that it seemed two torches there had stand; and upon the walls of the palace made he a metal man that held in his hand a metal bow that pointed ever upon the lamp for to shoot it out; but always burned the lamp and gave light over all Rome. And upon a time went the burgesses' daughters to play in the palace and beheld the metal man; and one of them asked in sport, why he shot not? And then she came to the man and with her hand touched the bow, and then the bolt flew out, and brake the lamp that Virgilius made; and it was wonder that the maiden went not out of her mind for the great fear she had, and also the other burgesses' daughters that were in her company, of the great stroke that it gave when it hit the lamp, and when they saw the metal man so swiftly run his way; and never after was he no more seen; and this foresaid lamp was abiding burning after the death of Virgilius by the space of three hundred years or more. It is on the wrecks and ruins recorded in such fables as these that modern science is builded. IV. BENVENUTO CELLINI. "Now we will leave the fairy tales," said Uncle Fritz, "and begin on modern times." "Modern times means since 1492," said Alice,--"the only date in history I am quite sure of, excepting 1866." "Eighteen-hundred and sixty-six," said John Goodrich,--"the _Annus Mirabilis_, celebrated for the birth of Miss Alice Francis and Mr. J. G." "Hush, hush! Uncle Fritz wants to say something." "We will leave the fairy tales," said poor chicken-pecked Uncle Fritz, "and begin with Benvenuto Cellini. Who has seen any of his work?" Several of the girls who had been in Europe remembered seeing gold and silver work of Benvenuto Cellini's in the museums. Uncle Fritz told them that the little hand-bell used on his own tea-table was modelled at Chicopee, in Massachusetts, from a bell which was the design of Benvenuto Cellini; and he sent for the bell that the children might see how ingenious was the ornamentation, and how simply the different designs were connected together.