d, and the devil ceased to tempt
him. And in due time Brother Dyonisio died, and as a saint they interred
him in the crypt under the convent, and the morning after his burial a
beautiful flower was found growing from his tomb, and so they sainted
him.

"The fall of the girl was a scandal and cause of laughter for all
Florence, so that from that day the monks never ventured more to draw up
damsels in baskets."

* * * * *

This story is so widely spread in many forms, that the reader can hardly
have failed to have heard it; in fact, there are few colleges where it
has not happened that a basket has not been used for such smuggling. One
of the most amusing instances is of a damsel in New Haven, or Cambridge,
Massachusetts, who was very forgetful. One day she said to a friend,
"You have no idea how wicked some girls are. The other morning early--I
mean late at night--I was going by the college when I saw a girl being
drawn up in a basket by some students, when all at once the rope
broke--_and down I came_."

In Germany, as in the East, the tale is told of a wooer who is drawn up
half-way in a basket and then let remain for everybody to behold. In
Uhland's Old Ballads there is one to this effect of Heinrich Corrade der
Schreiber im Korbe. Tales on this theme at least need not be regarded as
strictly traditional.

There is another little legend attached to La Certosa which owes its
small interest to being told of a man who was one of the Joe Millers of
Italy in the days of the Medici. It is a curious fact that humorists do
most abound and are most popular in great epochs of culture.

Domenico Barlacchi was a _banditore_--herald or public crier--of
Florence, commonly known as Il Barlacchia, who lived in the time of
Lorenzo de' Medici, and who, being _molto piacevole e faceto_, or
pleasing and facetious, as I am assured by an ancient yellow jest-book of
1636 now before me, became, like Piovano Arlotto and Gonella, one of the
famous wits of his time. It is worth noting, though it will be no news
to any folk-lorist, that in these flying leaves, or fleeting collections
of facetiae, there are many more indications of familiar old Florentine
life than are to be gleaned from the formal histories which are most
cited by writers who endeavour to illustrate it.

"One morning Barlacchia, with other boon companions, went to La
Certosa, three miles distant from Florence, {71} where, h