CONTENTS

Page
Beni's Keeper: Giotto[1]
The Victor: Bach[9]
"The Little Boy at Aberdeen": Byron[44]
"Tom Pear-Tree's Portrait": Gainsborough[71]
Georg's Champion: Händel[92]
Six Hundred Plus One: Coleridge[133]
The Lion that Helped: Canova[176]
Frédéric of Warsaw: Chopin[207]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"The citizen wheeled abruptly, grasped his arm"[Frontispiece]
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"He was roused by a hand upon his shoulder"[4]
"Sebastian started up, bewildered"[37]
"Lay in the grass reading aloud from his favorite story"[56]
"A head suddenly appeared above the wall"[84]
"The clavichord provided unceasing entertainment"[116]
"In its place appeared a noble lion"[193]
"Like the tired robbers, were fast asleep"[216]

BOYS WHO BECAME
FAMOUS MEN

BENI'S KEEPER [GIOTTO[1]]

One summer morning, long ago, a small boy guarded his father's sheep on a hillside in the Apennines. Up and down the stony pasture he trod, driving back the lambs who strayed too far, and trying all the while to keep his wayward charges in a group where he could count them from time to time. His chief care was to prevent them from straggling into the lonely passes above, where wild animals might set upon and devour them; and to watch that they did not wander down the wooded slope and imprison themselves in the tangled thickets below.