Life of Benvenuto Cellini, Written by Himself. Translated, with an
Introduction, by Anne Macdonell. 2 vols. (J. M. Dent and Co. 7s. net.)—This is the first of a new series of "Temple Autobiographies" which is to appear under the editor- ship of Mr. William Macdonald. The editor writes a brief pre- face, in which he magnifies autobiography as a form of literature and as a human record, and the translator writes an introduc- tion in which she appreciates the book and discusses especially the question of Collis:Ws veracity. Mr. J. A. Symonds held Cellini to be "a most veracious person." Sundry tests of examination applied to the narrative bring out a quite different result. As to the people with whom Cellini had to do, we may suspend our judgment ; he may have been the honest man and they the rascals who figure in his story. But what are we to say of the hailstones which he encountered "about twenty-two of the clock" when he was a day's journey from Lyons, on his way to Italy ? At first they were larger than " chalk balls from an air- gun " ; then they were like "balls from crossbow " ; next they were "as big as lemons." Further on, he saw lying on the ground "hailstones so big that you could not have spanned one of them with your two hands." But everything that Cellini did and everything that happened to him surpassed what other people did or endured. The autobiography is not an edifying book, and certainly not for every reader; but it is a very notable piece of work.
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