them wider or narrower, longer or shorter, as we may desire, or as a little flower shall confine it.

Madonna Lampiada - When I was a girl we did not love to dress our heads as many of our maidens do nowadays, putting so many flowers and leaves that they often resemble a jar full of gilliflowers or marjoram; nay, some might be a quarter of kid on the spit, since they will even wear rosemary, which to me seems the most graceless thing in the world. And you, Messer Celso, how seems it to you?

Celso I like it not, if I am to tell the truth; and this mistake arises from their not knowing for what reason the ancients would wear a flower above the ear. I speak of gentlewomen, since the peasant women, having no other jewels nor pearls, load themselves, as you know, with flowers, without order, fashion, or number; and in them this excess becomes beauty.

Madonna Lampiada-Meseems that even gentle ladies may have worn flowers for their more homely adornment, instead of pearls and gold; inasmuch as not all our peers have wherewithal to attire themselves with the gems of the Orient or the sands of Tagus, and so it was needful to use the riches of the gardens of our own land. But each one having tried to outdo the others, they seem sometimes as if they had a garland or quintain about the face. And waters and powders were in those days invented, to remove pimples and moles and other such stains, but to-day they are used to paint and whiten the whole face, just as lime and plaster cover the face of a wall; and peradventure those foolish maids believe that men, whom they seek to please, do not discern this foulness, which I would have them to know wears them out and makes them grow old before their time, and destroys their teeth, while they seem to be wearing a mask all the year through. Look now at Mona Bettola Gagliani; what do you think of her? The more she paints and the more she dresses up the older she seems; nay, she is like a gold ducat that hath lain in aquafortis. And it would not be thus if she had not used washes so much when she was young. I, for my part, if I am still well preserved (which indeed I know not, but it shall suffice that others say so) it is from no cause but that water from the well has ever been my wash, and shall be that of my daughter so long as she tarries with me; afterwards, it must be her husband's care.

Translation of Clara Bell.

OF THE HAND

From Of the Beauty of Women'

HE hand, which all declare to be perfect in you (to you I say

THE

it, Selvaggia, so hide it not), must likewise be white chiefly on the outer side, large enough and somewhat fat, the palm hollow and tinted with rose; the lines must be clear, few, distinct, firmly drawn, not crossing nor entangled, the mounts of Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury plainly to be seen, yet not over-high; the line of the intellect and wit should be deep and clear and crossed by no other. The hollow that lies between the thumb and middle finger must be shapely, without wrinkles, and brightly tinted. The fingers are beautiful when they are long, fine, and slender, tapering somewhat towards the tip, yet so little as to be scarce perceptible. The nails transparent, like pale rubies among pink roses and the leaves of the pomegranate flower; not long, not round nor altogether square, but of a fair shape and with a very little boss, uncovered, clean and well kept, so that at the base the little white crescent is visible. Above, beyond the flesh of the finger, an edge should be seen, as wide as a small knife is thick, without the smallest suspicion of a rim of black at the tip. And the whole hand must be of a tender, firm surface, as though it were of fine silk or the softest cotton. And this is all it occurs

Now this image will no

to me to say of the arms and hands. longer be like that in the piazza; but behold the thing she was compared with! You are indeed one of those sharp thorns which get in between the nail and the flesh, and if green, of the harder heart; and it is well for me that I have a good needle to withdraw it withal.

Selvaggia-Now, meseems, your picture is like those which are wrought by the hands of a good master; and to tell the truth, it is a most beautiful thing, so that if I were a man, whereas I am a woman, I should be constrained like a second Pygmalion to fall in love with her. And do not think that I call her beautiful only to signify that the parts which we have given her are the occasion of it, seeing that the adornments and graces you have bestowed on her might have made even the wife of Jacopo Cavallaccio seem fair. Since I (to speak only of myself), if I had so fair a bosom as you have described, should not yield to Helen nor Venus for beauty.

Celso -You have it indeed, and you know it; there is no need to make so many words about it. Good luck to you, and to him who may some day be worthy to behold it. And of a truth when that friend of mine composed a fine Elegy in its praise, having so fine a thread, it was no great marvel that he filled so fair a cloth. But to give our chimera the crowning perfection, that nothing may be lacking to her, you, Madonna Lampiada, will give her that witchery that sparkles in your eyes and that fine air which pervades the perfect proportion of your person; you, Madonna Amororrisca, will give her the queenly majesty of your person and the cheerfulness of your honest and modest gaze, that serious gait, that dignified countenance, and that gentle graciousness which delight all who behold them. Selvaggia will lend her a calm seemliness, an inviting charm, an honest yet bewitching, a severe yet sweet attractiveness, with that pitying cruelty which all are constrained to praise albeit none desire it. You, Verdespina, shall bestow the grace which makes you so dear; that readiness and sweetness of gay speech, subtle, honest, and gracious. Wit and the other gifts and virtues of the mind we do not need, inasmuch as we have described only the beauties of the body and not those of the spirit, for which a better painter than I am is needed, better colors and a better brush than those of my poor wit, albeit your example is no less sufficient for that kind of beauty than for the other.

And thus without more words their discourse ended, and each one returned to his own home.

Translation of Clara Bell.

K

KUNO FISCHER

(1824-)

BY RICHARD JONES

UNO FISCHER of Heidelberg, one of the most brilliant and stimulating of living university professors, the great historian and interpreter of modern philosophy, is distinguished likewise as an expositor and interpreter of some of the greater literature of the modern world. Indeed, his first published work, 'Diotima, oder die Idee des Schönen,' was an excursion into the realm of æsthetics; and his poetic sympathies, oratorical fervor and eloquence, and the literary charm of his interpretations, have contributed no less

KUNO FISCHER

than his profound philosophic insight toward drawing to him university students from all parts of the world, from the beginning of his distinguished university career.

The son of a country pastor, he was born July 23d, 1824, at Sandewalde in the province of Silesia. He attended the Gymnasium of Posen, and began in 1844 his university studies, philology, theology, and philosophy; first at Leipsic, then at Halle, where he received the degree of doctor of philosophy in 1847. In the Michaelmas semester of 1850 he began his instruction in philosophy as privatdocent in the University of Heidelberg. His lectures were from the first exceptionally successful, but in 1853 he was forbidden by a ministerial edict from continuing his university instruction. No reason was assigned for this arbitrary act, which aroused deep indignation in university circles throughout Germany as a serious infringement of the "Lehrfreiheit," the unrestricted freedom of thought and of teaching so dear to the German university professor's heart. He remained amid the beautiful surroundings of Heidelberg, enjoying the friendship of Strauss and of Gervinus, improving his enforced leisure by working on his history of philosophy, -the volume which appeared in 1856, and which serves as an Introduction to the history proper; viz., 'Francis Bacon und seine Nachfolger' (Francis Bacon and his Successors), receiving the compliment of an immediate translation

into English.

In the autumn of 1855 Fischer requested permission to lecture in the University of Berlin, but on account of the Heidelberg proscription this request was refused by the Prussian Minister of Education. However, in response to a petition of the faculty of the University of Berlin, an order was issued by the King in September 1856, granting their request that Fischer be permitted to lecture. But in the mean time he had received a call to the chair of philosophy at Jena, made famous by Fichte and Schelling and Hegel. This call he accepted. Here his lectures were again extraordinarily successful. Students flocked to Jena as they had not done since the days of Schiller, Schelling, and Fichte. He was made Privy Councilor of the Duke, and was the recipient of many honors. In 1870 he declined a call to the University of Vienna, but in 1872 he accepted a call to the University of Heidelberg as Zeller's successor, where he has since remained, the brightest ornament of the oldest university within the present limits of Germany.

His literary work has been done in the two fields of philosophic and literary exposition and interpretation. His 'Geschichte der Neuern Philosophie' (History of Modern Philosophy) is now become, after successive enlargements in several editions, a monumental work, famous for the clearness and beauty of its literary style no less than for its philosophic insight and sympathetic interpretation. Kuno Fischer's method is not to give in brief the essence of a philosophic system, the substance of Kant, for example. He gives, on the contrary, Kant amplified, interpreted, illustrated. He states lucidly that which Kant himself stated obscurely, and illumines the Cimmerian darkness of the Critique of Pure Reason' by a remarkably clear and successful interpretation, which has influenced profoundly philosophic thought during the closing decades of the nineteenth century.

His treatment of philosophic systems is colored with life by sympathetic recitals of the lives and characters of the men who founded

these systems. As an introduction, for example, to the philosophy of Leibnitz, there is given a full account of the life and times of Leibnitz, closing with a description of his death, alone and friendless. This great many-sided genius, until Kant came the greatest mind since Aristotle, world-renowned, who had served his king for forty years, died neglected and solitary, practically imprisoned, set to a task, yearning for the green fields, a change of scene, and liberty, and no one knows to this day the spot where he lies buried,—a striking theme for a philosopher-poet, who is by nature an orator, "musical as is Apollo's lute." To hearers or readers who have learned thus to know the man Leibnitz, the system of thought of the philosopher Leibnitz can never be thereafter a mere lifeless ab

straction.