ues at certain times walk about or are animated.

One of the commonest halfpenny or _soldo_ pamphlets to be found on the
stand of all open-air dealers in ballads--as, for instance, in the
Uffizzi--is a collection of poems on the statues around that building,
which of itself indicates the interest in the past, and the knowledge of
poets and artists possessed by the common people. For the poorest of
them are not only familiar with the names, and more or less with the
works, of Orcagna, Buonarotti, Dante, Giotto, Da Vinci, Raffaelle,
Galileo, Machiavelli, and many more, but these by their counterfeit
presentments have entered into their lives and live. Men who are so
impressioned make but one bold step over the border into the fairyland of
faith while the more cultured are discussing it.

I do not, with some writers, believe that a familiarity with a few names
of men whose statues are always before them, and from whose works the
town half lives, indicates an indescribably high culture or more refined
nature in a man, but I think it is very natural for him to make legends
on them. There are three other incantations given in another chapter,
the object of which, like this to Dante, is to become a poet.

"From which we learn that in the fairy faith," writes Flaxius, with
ever-ready pen, "that poets risen to spirits still inspire, even in
person, neophytes to song.

"'Life is a slate of action, and the store
Of all events is aggregated there
That variegate the eternal universe;
Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom,
That leads to azure isles and beaming skies . . .
Therefore, O spirit, fearlessly bear on.'"

LEGENDS OF LA CERTOSA

"'Now when ye moone like a golden flowre,
In ye sky above doth bloome,
Ile lett doune a basket in that houre,
And pull ye upp to my roome,
And give mee a kisse if 'tis yes,' he cryed;
Ye mayden would nothing refuse;
But held upp hir lippes--
Oh I would I had beene
Just thenn in that friar's shoos."

If we pass the Porta Romana, and keep on for three miles, we shall arrive
at the old Carthusian convent of La Certosa in Val d'Ema. Soon after
passing "the village of Galluzzo, where the stream is crossed, we come to
an ancient gateway surmounted by a statue of Saint Laurence, _through
which no female could enter_ except by permission of the archbishop, and
out which no monk could pass." At least, it is so s