Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini a Florentine Artist

s the creature, he gave me a box on the ear: I fell a-crying, while he, soothing me with his caressess, said, " My dear child, I don't give you that blow for any fault you have committed, but that you may remember that the little lizard which you see in the fire is a salamander ; a creature which no one that I have heard of ever beheld before." So saying, he embraced me, and gave me some money. My father began to teach me to play upon the flute, and to sing by note; and though I was very young, at an age when children, generally speaking, are highly pleased with piping and such amusements, I had the utmost aversion for it, and played and sang merely in obedience to his authority. My father at that time made the most curious organs with pipes of wood, the finest and best harpsichords that were to be seen in those days, and most beautiful and excellent viols, lutes, and harps. He was an engineer, and constructed a variety of machines, such as draw-bridges, fulling-mills,