d gay and bright as stars do shine,
He went to his mother, and the pious wife
Gave thanks to God for mercy all divine."

Which being witnessed, says the _Vita San Zenobii_, all who were present
began to sing, "_Gloria tibi Domine qui mirabilia per servos tuos in
nobis operari dignatus es_, _gloria sit tibi-i et laus in
saecu-la--sec-u-lo-o-o-rum_, _A-men_.

Which, if they sung it as I heard it sung yesterday in the Cathedral of
Siena, must have had an extremely soporific effect, lulling all others to
sleep, and causing them to see beatific visions beyond all belief. I had
in my boyhood a teacher named Professor Sears C. Walker, who was wont to
tell how he had once heard in a rural New England village a church
congregation sing:

"Before thy throne the angels bow-wow-wow-ow!"

But to hear the _bow-wow_ in perfection, one must go to Rome. A pack in
full cry or a chorus of owls is nothing to it. But let us pass on to a
fresh story.

LEGENDS OF THE BOBOLI GARDENS: THE OLD GARDENER, AND THE TWO STATUES AND
THE FAIRY

"He found such strange enchantment there,
In that garden sweet and rare,
Where night and day
The nightingales still sing their roundelay,
And plashing fountains 'neath the verdure play,
That for his life he could not thence away;
And even yet, though he hath long been dead,
'Tis said his spirit haunts the pleasant shade."

--_The Ring of Charlemagne_.

A great showman, as I have heard, once declared that in establishing a
menagerie, one should have the indispensable lion, an _obligato_
elephant, a requisite tiger, an essential camel, and imperative monkeys.
One of the "indispensable lions" of Florence is the Boboli Gardens,
joining the Pitti Palace, which, from their careful preservation in their
original condition, give an admirable idea of what gardens were like in
an age when far more was thought of them than now as places of habitual
resort and enjoyment, and when they entered into all literature and life.
Abraham a Santa Clara once wrote a discourse against gardens, as making
life too happy or simple, basing his idea on the fact that sin originated
in the Garden of Eden.

The Boboli Gardens were planned by Il Tribolo for Cosimo di Medici. The
ground which they occupy is greatly varied, rising high in some places,
from which very beautiful views of Florence, with its "walls and
churches, palace