the metal melting and glittering. The wind was, however, still blowing with fury, and the rain falling heavily; so, to protect himself, Cellini had some tables with pieces of tapestry and old clothes brought to him, behind which he went on hurling the wood into the furnace. A mass of pewter was thrown in upon the other metal, and by stirring, sometimes with iron and sometimes with long poles, the whole soon became completely melted At this juncture, when the trying moment was close at hand, a terrible noise as of a thunderbolt was heard, and a glittering of fire flashed before Cellini's eyes. The cover of the furnace had burst, and the metal began to flow! Finding that it did not run with the proper velocity, Cellini rushed into the kitchen, bore away every piece of copper and pewter that it contained—some two hundred porringers, dishes, and kettles of different kinds—and threw them into the furnace. Then at length the metal flowed freely, and thus the splendid statue of Perseus was cast.
The divine fury of genius in which Cellini rushed to his kitchen and stripped it of its utensils for the purposes of his furnace will remind the reader of the like act of Palissy in breaking up his furniture for the purpose of baking his earthenware. Excepting, however, in their enthusiasm, no two men could be less alike in character. Cellini was an Ishmael against whom, according to his own account, every man's hand was turned. But about his extraordinary skill as a workman, and his genius as an artist, there cannot be two opinions.
Much less turbulent was the career of Nicolas Poussin, a man as pure and elevated in his ideas
