ery
day a fresh wreath of roses round the Roman vase, and every evening he
was visited by the fairy. And so it went on well with him till he died,
and after that the spirit was seen no more. The witches say that the
vase is, however, somewhere still in Florence, and that while it exists
the city will prosper; but to call the fairy again it must be crowned
with roses, and he who does so must pronounce with such faith as the
gardener had, the same incantation."

* * * * *

What is remarkable in the original text of this tale is the rudeness and
crudeness of the language in which it is written, which is indeed so
great that its real spirit or meaning might easily escape any one not
familiar with such composition. But I believe that I have rendered it
very faithfully.

There seems to be that, however, in Bellosguardo which inspires every
poet. Two of the most beautiful passages in English literature, one by
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and another by Hawthorne, describe the views
seen from it. The castle itself is deeply impressed on my memory, for
during the past nine months I have never once raised my eyes from the
table where I write without beholding it in full view before me across
the Arno, even as I behold it now.

I cannot help observing that the mysterious sentiment which seized on the
hero of this tale when he found his virgin relic, was marvellously like
that which inspired Keats when he addressed his Ode to a Grecian Urn:

"Thou still unravished bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape?"

That which I have here given is truly a leaf-fringed legend, for it is
bordered with the petals of roses and embalmed with their perfume, and
one which in the hands of a great master might have been made into a
really beautiful poem. It came near a very gay rhymer at least in the
Duke Lorenzo de' Medici, whose songs, which were a little more than free,
and rather more loose than easy, were the delight and disgrace of his
time. And yet I cannot help rejoicing to meet this magnificent patron of
art and letters at so late a day in a purely popular tale. There are
_men_ of beauty who are also a joy for ever, as well as things, and
Lorenzo was one of them.

It is worth noting that just as the fairy in this tale re