ll his brush, the monarch picked it up, and presented it to the
astonished artist, saying, "It becomes Caesar to serve Titian." On
another occasion, Caesar requested Titian to retouch a picture which hung
over the door of the chamber, and with the assistance of his courtiers
moved up a table for the artist to stand upon, but finding the height
insufficient, without more ado, he took hold of one corner, and calling
on those gentlemen to assist, he hoisted Titian aloft with his own
imperial hands, saying, "We must all of us bear up this great man to
show that his art is empress of all others." The envy and displeasure
with which men of pomp and ceremonies viewed these familiarities, that
appeared to them as so many breaches in the divinity that hedged their
king and themselves, only gave their master opportunities to do fresh
honors to his favorite in these celebrated and cutting rebukes: "There
are many princes, but there is only one Titian;" and again, when he
placed Titian on his right hand, as he rode out on horseback, "I have
many nobles, but I have only one Titian." Not less valued, perhaps, by
the great painter, than his titles, orders, and pensions, was the
delicate compliment the Emperor paid him when he declared that "no other
hand should draw his portrait, since he had thrice received immortality
from the pencil of Titian." Palomino, perhaps carried away by an
artist's enthusiasm, asserts that "Charles regarded the acquisition of a
picture by Titian with as much satisfaction as he did the conquest of a
province." At all events, when the Emperor parted with all his provinces
by abdicating his throne, he retained some of Titian's pictures. When he
betook himself to gardening, watchmaking, and manifold masses at San
Yuste, the sole luxury to be found in his simple apartments, with their
hangings of sombre brown, was that master's St. Jerome, meditating in a
cavern scooped in the cliffs of a green and pleasant valley--a fitting
emblem of his own retreat. Before this appropriate picture, or the
"Glory," which hung in the church of the convent, and which was removed
in obedience to his will, with his body to the Escurial, he paid his
orisons and schooled his mind to forgetfulness of the pomps and vanities
of life.

TITIAN AND PHILIP II.

Titian was not less esteemed by Philip II., than by his father, Charles
V. When Philip married Mary, Queen of England, he presented him his
famous picture of Venus and Adonis, wit