CANO’S ECCENTRICITIES.

Palomino relates several characteristic anecdotes of Cano. An Auditor of the Chancery of Granada bore especial devotion to St. Anthony of Padua, and wished for an image of that saint from the hands of Cano. When the figure was finished, the judge liked it much. He inquired what money the artist expected for it: the answer was, one hundred doubloons. The amateur was astonished, and asked, “How many days he might have spent upon it?” Cano replied, “Some five-and-twenty days.” “Well,” said the Auditor, “that comes to four doubloons per day.” “Your lordship reckons wrong,” said Cano, “for I have spent fifty years in learning to execute it in twenty-five days.” “That is all very well, but I have spent my patrimony and my youth in studying at the University, and in a higher profession; now here I am, Auditor in Granada, and if I get a doubloon a day, it is as much as I do.” Cano had scarce patience to hear him out. “A higher profession, indeed!” he exclaimed; “the king can make judges out of the dust of the earth, but it is reserved for God alone to make an Alonso Cano.” Saying this, he took up the figure and dashed it to pieces on the pavement; whereupon the Auditor escaped as fast as he could, not feeling sure that Cano’s fury would confine itself to the statue.