6 NOVEMBER 1926, Page 37

Just four English translations of Benvenuto Cellini's auto- - biography

exist—Nugent's which is wholly negligible, Ros- eoe's which is pedantic, Addington Symonds' which is as much Symonds as Cellini, and now this one by Miss Anne Maedonnell, which was, however, published as long ago as 1903. This new edition of the Life (Dent, 7s. (id.) calls therefore for no - teinark save that it contains some pictures. It, however, gvesone the excuse of reading main the Inaenifialifdeibrif3- tion of the casting of Benvenuto's Perseus. Miss Maedonnell's version, sound and good as it is, is bowdlerized like all the rest. Will there ever come a' day when we shall be allosied" the whole of our Benvenuto unmutilated.