Again Vasari says, "In the year 1566 when I, the writer of the present history, was in Venice, I went to visit Titian as one who was his friend, and found him, although then very old, still with the pencils in his hand painting busily." The old gossip goes on to say that Paris Bordone, who "had studied grammar and become an excellent musician," had set himself to imitate Titian, who did not love him on that account, and had sought to keep him from getting commissions. Bordone persevered and went to Augsburg, where he painted pictures, now lost, for some of the great German merchants. This little glimpse of rivalry suggests to us that Titian was jealous of his reputation, although Vasari tells us elsewhere that he was kind and considerate to his contemporaries, and free from uneasiness, because he had gained a fair amount of wealth, his labours having always been well paid. Vasari hints, too, that he kept his brush in hand too long; he must have written this when he remembered that, for all his many excellences, Titian was a Venetian. "Titian has always been healthy and happy," he writes; "he has been favoured beyond the lot of most men, and has received from Heaven only favours and blessings. In his house he has always been visited by whatever princes, literati, or men of distinction have gone to Venice, for in addition to his excellence in art he has always distinguished himself by courtesy, goodness, and rectitude." Perhaps his remark that Titian's reputation would have stood higher if he had finished work earlier may be no more than a veiled comment upon the indiscriminate misuse of the labours of pupils. [Illustration: PLATE VII.--SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE (In the Borghese Palace, Rome) This most beautiful work of Titian's is one belonging to his early days. It was probably commissioned in 1512 by the Chancellor of Venice, and we find that it was in the possession of Cardinal Scipione Borghese at the beginning of the seventeenth century. It may be seen to-day in the Borghese Palace of Rome.] In the latter years of his sojourn in Venice the artist lived in a house towards Murano, between the Church of San Giovanni de Paolo and the Church of the Jesuits. He entertained very largely, giving supper parties from which no seasonable delicacy was lacking, and gathering round him distinguished men and women who were far less celebrated for their morals than for their attractions. His gossip Aretino was generally of the party, and it is to him that we owe so much of our intimate knowledge of the painter's home life and troubles. Aretino's death in 1556 must have been a great blow to Titian.