y, asked for drink, and
by a mistake was given wine from a flask prepared and sent by Caesar for
the Cardinal. Caesar himself came in next, and drank likewise. The Pope
died the next day, but Caesar recovered, though badly poisoned, to find
himself a ruined man and ultimately a fugitive. The Cardinal did not
touch the wine. This event ended an epoch and a reign of terror, and it
pilloried the name of Borgia for ever. Alexander expired in the third
room of the Borgia apartments, in the raving of a terrible delirium,
during which the superstitious bystanders believed that he was
conversing with Satan, to whom he had sold his soul for the papacy, and
some were ready to swear that they actually saw seven devils in the room
when he was dying. The fact that these witnesses were able to count the
fiends speaks well for their coolness, and for the credibility of their
testimony.

It has been much the fashion of late years to cry down the Vatican
collection of statues, and to say that, with the exception of the
'Torso' it does not contain a single one of the few great masterpieces
known to exist, such as the 'Hermes of Olympia,' the 'Venus of Medici,'
the 'Borghese Gladiator,' the 'Dying Gaul.' We are told that the
'Apollo' of the Belvedere is a bad copy, and that the 'Laocoon' is no
better, in spite of the signatures of the three Greek artists, one on
each of the figures; that the 'Antinous' is a bad Hermes; and so on to
the end of the collection, it being an easy matter to demolish the more
insignificant statues after proving the worthlessness of the principal
ones. Much of this criticism comes to us from Germany. But a German can
criticise and yet admire, whereas an Anglo-Saxon usually despises what
he criticises at all. Isaac D'Israeli says somewhere that certain
opinions, like certain statues, require to be regarded from a proper
distance. Probably none of the statues in the Vatican is placed as the
sculptor would have placed it to be seen to advantage. Michelangelo
believed in the 'Laocoon,' and he was at least as good a judge as most
modern critics, and he roughed out the arm that was missing,--his sketch
lies on the floor in the corner,--and devoted much time to studying the
group. It is true that he is said to have preferred the torso of the
'Hercules,' but he did not withhold his admiration of the other good
things. Of the 'Apollo' it is argued that it is insufficiently modelled.
Possibly it stood in a very high place