"Looking back on some delightful and happy events of my life, and on many misfortunes so truly overwhelming that the appalling retrospect makes me wonder how I reached this age, in vigor and prosperity, through God's goodness, I have resolved to publish an account of my life. "My grandfather, Andrea Cellini, was still living when I was about three years of age, and he was then above a hundred. As they were one day removing a water-pipe, a large scorpion, which they had not perceived, came out of it. The scorpion descended upon the ground and had got under a great bench, when I, seeing it, ran and caught it in my hand. This scorpion was of such a size that whilst I held it in my little hand, it put out its tail on one side, and on the other darted its two mouths. I ran overjoyed to my grandfather, crying out, 'Grandfather, look at my pretty little crab!' The good old man, who knew it to be a scorpion, was so frightened, and so apprehensive for my safety, that he seemed ready to drop down dead, and begged me with great eagerness to give the creature to him; but I grasped it the harder and cried, for I did not choose to part with it. My father, who was in the house, ran to us upon hearing the noise, and, happening just at that instant to espy a pair of scissors, he laid hold of them, and, by caressing and playing with me, he contrived to cut off the head and tail of the scorpion. Then, finding I had received no harm from the venomous reptile, he pronounced it a happy omen." * * * * * His father taught him to play upon the flute, and wished him to devote himself to music; but his own inclinations were different. "Having attained the age of fifteen, I engaged myself, against my father's inclinations, with a goldsmith named Antonio di Sandro, an excellent artist and a very worthy man. My father would not have him allow me any wages; for this reason, that since I voluntarily applied myself to this art, I might have an opportunity to withdraw whenever I thought proper. So great was my inclination to improve, that in a few months I rivalled the most skilful journeyman in the business, and began to reap some fruits from my labor. I continued, however, to play sometimes, through complaisance to my father, either upon the flute or the horn; and I constantly drew tears and deep sighs from him every time he heard me. From a feeling of filial piety, I often gave him that satisfaction, endeavoring to persuade him that it gave me also particular pleasure. "Once when I was staying at Pisa, my father wrote to me in every letter exhorting me not to neglect my flute, in which he had taken so much pains to instruct me. Upon this, I entirely lost all inclination to return to him; and to such a degree did I hate that abominable flute, that I thought myself in a sort of paradise in Pisa, where I never once played upon that instrument." * * * * *