264. I take farewell of him then, for a little time, ratifying to you, as far as my knowledge permits, the words of my first master in Italian art, Lord Lindsay. "In comparing the advent of Niccola Pisano to that of the sun at his rising, I am conscious of no exaggeration; on the contrary, it is the only simile by which I can hope to give you an adequate impression of his brilliancy and power relatively to the age in which he flourished. Those sons of Erebus, the American Indians, fresh from their traditional subterranean world, and gazing for the first time on the gradual dawning of the day in the East, could not have been more dazzled, more astounded, when the sun actually appeared, than the popes and podestas, friars and freemasons must have been in the thirteenth century, when from among the Biduinos, Bonannos, and Antealmis of the twelfth, Niccola emerged in his glory, sovereign and supreme, a fount of light, diffusing warmth and radiance over Christendom. It might be too much to parallel him in actual genius with Dante and Shakspeare; they stand alone and unapproachable, each on his distinct pinnacle of the temple of Christian song; and yet neither of them can boast such extent and durability of influence, for whatever of highest excellence has been achieved in sculpture and painting, not in Italy only, but throughout Europe, has been in obedience to the impulse he primarily gave, and in following up the principle which he first struck out. "His latter days were spent in repose at Pisa, but the precise year of his death is uncertain; Vasari fixes it in 1275; it could not have been much later. He was buried in the Campo Santo. Of his personal character we, alas! know nothing; even Shakspeare is less a stranger to us. But that it was noble, simple, and consistent, and free from the petty foibles that too frequently beset genius, may be fairly presumed from the works he has left behind him, and from the eloquent silence of tradition." 265. Of the circumstances of Niccola Pisano's death, or the ceremonials practised at it, we are thus left in ignorance.