HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

i^cine, 97
THE ROMAN ABBATE.
Oh, what a happy mortal is such a
Roman ablate ! He serves not only the
Church of Christ, but also Apollo and
the Muses, whose favorite he is. The
Graces hold his inkstand for him when
he indites the sonnets which, with such
delicate cadences, he reads in the Accaderaia
degli Arcadi. He is a connoisseur
of art, and needs only to taste the lips of
a young songstress in order to be able to
foretell whether she will some day be
celeberriraa cantatrice, a diva, a worldrenowned
prima-donna. He understands
antiquities, and will write a treatise in
the choicest Ciceronian Latin concerning
some newly-unearthed torso of a
CJrecian Bacchante, reverentially dedicating
it to the supreme head of Christendom,
to the Pontifex Maximus, for
so he addresses him. And what a judge
of painting is the Signer Abbate, who
visits the painters in their ateliers and
directs their attention to the fine points
of their female models ! The writer of
the.si! pages had in him just the material
for such an abbate, and was just suited
for strolling in delightful dolce far niente
through the libraries, art galleries,
churches, and ruins of the Eternal City,
studying among pleasures, and seeking
pleasure while studying.