The king in vain excused his hasty retreats and abortive enterprises

And if someone wants to know how to make objections to actual craftsmen themselves on the subject of art in general or any particular art, there are published treatises available, as you know.

[…] a tramp bitch, whose puppies had been captured in the neighborhood of the matanza. The beef-packery is guarded at night by a dozen ugly-looking mastiffs, and the tramp dogs generally give the establishment an extensive berth; but […] They used to sit in groups on the slope of a little hill near the matanza, appealing to the charity of the proprietor by yelping in chorus every now and then. There was so much waste stuff around the place that the captain concluded to grant their petition, and, by way of encouragement, sent them a car-load of beef-bones and rippings, instructing the driver to scatter the scraps between the hill and the bone-pit.

Cast in dark bronze and resembling Roman antiquities, Riccio's small-scale statuettes, reliefs and oil lamps seem unremarkably modest at first.