His right
elbow rests upon a table, and the slender bejewelled fingers are
listlessly pressing open a lettered scroll of parchment on which can be
deciphered the words "A CHI T'HA FIGLIATO" (to her who bare thee)--a
legend which the bibliographer, whose acquaintance with the vernacular
was not on a level with his classical attainments, conjectured to be
some fashionable courtly toast of the period.
The mention of artillery recalls the fact that His Highness was an
amateur of ordnance. He established a gun-foundry on the island, and
what he did not know about the art of casting pieces, as practised in
his day, was plainly not worth knowing. Had it not been for his
passionate love of testing new processes and new combinations of metal,
he might have attained to a European reputation in that department. But
he was always experimenting, and the consequence was that his cannons
were always splitting. One, however, a monster of its kind, remained
intact, to outward appearances. It was fired on every conceivable
occasion--to summon the Militia, for example, from remote corners of the
island at any hour of the day or night, a considerable hardship to
those who lived at a distance of two or three miles, seeing that
according to the instructions set forth in the Militiaman's Year-book,
the sternest penalties were imposed upon all who failed to appear in
their ranks at the Palace gates within five minutes after the signal
had been sounded.
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