to Florence. He knew that that city contained an academy of fine arts, a school of painting, and the little shepherd was ambitious of being a painter. 2. After searching throughout the city, he stopped at the gate of the Cardinal's palace, and inhaling from a distance the odor of the kitchen, he waited patiently until his lordship was served, in order to speak to his friend Thomas. He had to wait a long time; but, at last, the much wished-for moment of the interview arrived. 3. "Here you are, Peter; and what are you going to do in Florence?" "I am going to learn painting." 4. "You had much better follow my example, and learn to cook; at all events, you are sure of not having to die of hunger." "You eat, then, as much as you like here?" said Peter. 5. "I believe you," replied the little scullion; "and might give myself a fit of indigestion' every day, if I were so disposed." "In that case,” replied Peter, "I see we may manage věry well. As you have too much, and I have not enough, you can find food, and I shall find appetite, and we shall get on very well together." 6. "Yes, that will do," said Thomas. "Věry well, then, let it do at once," resumed Peter; "for as I have not dined, we may as well begin from this very moment the arrangement I had come to propose to you." 7. Thomas made him creep up secretly into the garret where he slept, offered him half his bed, told him to wait ǎwhile, and that he would soon return with some of the remains of the Cardinal's dinner. We need not say whether the repast was a měrry one. Thomas had an excellent heart, and Peter an excellent appetite. 8. "Now, then, as you are well lodged, and well fed, the only question is, how are you going to work?" "Like every one else who draws with pencils and paper." 9. "But," urged Thomas, "you have money, then, to buy pencils and paper?" "I! I have no money at all; but I said to myself, as I came along, Thomas, who is a scullion in the Cardinal's kitchen, can not fail to have money; and since he is rich, it is just the same as if I were so." 'In di ges' tion, want of ability to prepare the food in the stomach and change it into blood. 10. Thomas scratched his ear, and replied that, so far as a few bones to pick were concerned, there was no want of those in the house; but as to money, he must wait at least three years longer, before he had any right to ask for wages. 11. Peter resigned himself to his fate. The walls of his garret were white; Thomas supplied the young artist with more charcoal than he could use for his sketches, and Peter set vigorously to work to draw on the walls. We know not by what means little Thomas succeeded in procuring a small piece of money; but the child had too good a heart to be wanting in honesty, therefore we must believe that the little scullion had legitimately' obtained the half-pistole' which he one day triumphantly brought to his companion. 12. What joy was there, then! The artist could now have pencils and paper. He went out at break of day to study the pictures in the churches, the monuments in the public squares, and the views around the city; and in the evening, with an empty stomach, but with a mind well filled with what he had seen, he furtively' returned to the garret, where he was always sure to find his dinner ready, and placed by Thomas under the mătʼtress, less for the purpose of concealment, than to keep it warm during his friend's absence. TH IV. 8. PETER OF CORTONA. PART SECOND, HE charcoal sketches soon disappeared under more correct designs, for Peter covered with his best drawings the walls of the narrow cell, in which the friendship of a child had afforded him so generous an asyʼlum.* 2. One day, the Cardinal Sacchetti, whose palace was undergoing repair, visited, in company with the architect, the upper 'Le gĭt'i mately, honestly; in a secretly; by theft. lawful manner. 2 Pis tōle', a gold coin of Spain, worth about three dollars and sixty cents. In other countries it varies in value from three to five dollars. 'Furtively, (får tiv li), stealthily, * A sylum, an institution or place for the benefit of the destitute or infortunate; a safe retreat or abode. "Ar' chi tect, a contriver or maker; a person skilled in the art of building. stories, to which, perhaps, he had never before ascended, and entered the garret of the little scullion. Peter was absent ; but his numerous drawings sufficiently testified the laborious in'dustry of the child who inhabited this retreat. 3. The Cardinal and the architect were struck with the merits of these productions; they at first supposed Thomas to be the author of them, and the prěl'ate' summoned him into his presence, in order to compliment him on his talents. When poor Thomas became aware that the Cardinal had visited his garret, and that he had seen what he called the smudges of his friend Peter, he believed himself lost. 4. "You are no longer one of my scullions," said the Cardinal to him, little thinking that the child had a fellow-lodger. Thomas, mistaking the purport' of his words, imagined that his master dismissed him from his kitchen: then the poor little fellow, seeing that his own existence, as well as that of his friend, was much compromised' by this act of severe justice, threw himself at his master's feet, saying: 5. "Oh, signor!' what will become of my poor friend Peter, if you send him away?" The Cardinal demanded an explanation of these words, which he could not understand, and thus discovered that the drawings were the work of a little shepherd, whom Thomas had secretly maintained for two years. 6. "When he returns at night, you will bring him to me," said the Cardinal, laughing at the mistake, and generously forgiving Thomas. That evening, the artist did not make his appearance at the palace of the Cardinal; two days, a week, a fortnight, elapsed, and still nothing was heard of Peter of Cortōna. 7. At length, the Cardinal, who was greatly in'terested in the fate of the young artist, succeeded in discovering that, for a fortnight, the charitable monks of an isolated' convent had received and detained with them a young draughtsman," from 1 Prěl' ate, a clergyman of high rank. A cardinal is a prelate of the highest order in the Roman Church, next in rank to the Pope. • Purport, (pår port), meaning. title of address or respect among the Italians. 'Is' o lāt ed, separated from others; lonely. 6 Draughtsman, (dråfts' man), one who draws writings or designs, or one skilled in the making of drawings. fourteen to fifteen years of age, who had come to ask permission to copy a picture of Raphael's' which was in the chapel of the cloister. This child was Peter. He was taken back to the palace of the Cardinal, who, after receiving him with kindnèss, placed him in the school of one of the best painters in Rome. 8. Fifty years later, there were two old men, living together like brothers, in one of the handsomèst private dwellings of Florence. It was said of the one-" He is the greatest painter of our day;" of the other-" He will be the modèl of friends in all future ages." 2. 3. V. 9. THE TWO BOYS. HERE were two boys, who were bred up together, Each tried the other's sport, from their first chase, To when they followed the fleet hare, and tried They lay beside The silver trout stream, watching as the sun Of either's garden; and together read A thought of future days, 'twas but to say That they would share each other's lot, and do Whose kindness was the heart's, and those warm tears, 1 Rǎph' a ěl was a very eminent painter, whose works are the admiration of the world. He lived between the years 1483 and 1520. Robinson Crusoe, (rob' in sn kroso), here referred to, the hero of DE FOE's great novel, a shipwrecked sailor who for many years led a solitary life on an uninhabited island of the tropics. But which are thought upon in after years As what we would give worlds to shed once more. 4. They met again,'-but different from themselves,— 5. They met with cold words and yet colder looks: 1 And they, Came like the pestilence' o'er some sweet thoughts Again, (å gån'). 'Indian, (ind' yan), relating to India. Rivalry, state of being in pursuit of the same thing as another, and which only one can possess; opposed to each other. 'Pěs'ti lence, the plague; an infec- all the year. |