Читать книгу Geofroy Tory. Painter and engraver; first royal printer; reformer of orthography and typography under François I онлайн

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'Desiring to instruct me in the Ausonian tongue, and also to render me accomplished in the polite arts, he, like a most affectionate father, teaching me night and day, himself laid the foundations, sweet and ample, for my life.'[49]

Farther on, he makes his daughter speak thus, from the depths of the urn in which she is supposed to repose:—

MONITOR

Who made for you this urn set with brilliant gems?

AGNES

Who? My father, famed in this art.

MONITOR

Your father is certainly an excellent potter.

AGNES

He practises industriously every day the liberal arts.

MONITOR

Does he also write melodies and poems?

AGNES

He does. He also blesses with sweet words this lot of mine.

MONITOR

Yes, the skill of the man is wonderful.

AGNES

Hardly has any land produced so famous a man.[50]

We learn from this that Tory was not only a scholar, which we already knew, but an artist of great merit. Who knows? it may be that we had in him the making of a Benvenuto Cellini. What more was necessary that he should reveal himself as such? Very little—perhaps the falling in with a wealthy Mæcenas. In fact, we find these lines in another piece of verse in the same collection:—