the pedestal of the statue.

It was the figure of a pope, arrayed in his pontifical robes, and
crowned with the tiara. He sat in a bronze chair, elevated high above
the pavement, and seemed to take kindly yet authoritative cognizance
of the busy scene which was at that moment passing before his eye. His
right hand was raised and spread abroad, as if in the act of shedding
forth a benediction, which every man--so broad, so wise, and so serenely
affectionate was the bronze pope's regard--might hope to feel quietly
descending upon the need, or the distress, that he had closest at his
heart. The statue had life and observation in it, as well as patriarchal
majesty. An imaginative spectator could not but be impressed with
the idea that this benignly awful representative of divine and human
authority might rise from his brazen chair, should any great public
exigency demand his interposition, and encourage or restrain the people
by his gesture, or even by prophetic utterances worthy of so grand a
presence.

And in the long, calm intervals, amid the quiet lapse of ages, the
pontiff watched the daily turmoil around his seat, listening with
majestic patience to the market cries, and all the petty uproar that
awoke the echoes of the stately old piazza. He was the enduring friend
of these men, and of their forefathers and children, the familiar face
of generations.

"The pope's blessing, methinks, has fallen upon you," observed the
sculptor, looking at his friend.

In truth, Donatello's countenance indicated a healthier spirit than
while he was brooding in his melancholy tower. The change of scene, the
breaking up of custom, the fresh flow of incidents, the sense of being
homeless, and therefore free, had done something for our poor Faun;
these circumstances had at least promoted a reaction, which might else
have been slower in its progress. Then, no doubt, the bright day, the
gay spectacle of the market place, and the sympathetic exhilaration
of so many people's cheerfulness, had each their suitable effect on a
temper naturally prone to be glad. Perhaps, too, he was magnetically
conscious of a presence that formerly sufficed to make him happy. Be the
cause what it might, Donatello's eyes shone with a serene and hopeful
expression while looking upward at the bronze pope, to whose widely
diffused blessing, it may be, he attributed all this good influence.

"Yes, my dear friend," said he, in reply to the sculptor's remark, "I