e to the Florentines, and especially to the grand duke,
with whom he was a great favorite. This Mr. Sloane had bought some
years before the date of my anecdote the ancient Medicean villa of
Careggi, with a considerable extent of land surrounding it. One day
the grand duke paid him a visit at his villa of Careggi, and in the
course of it proposed a walk up the slope of the Apennines through
some fine woods that made a part of Mr. Sloane's property. They went
together, enjoying the delightful walk through the woods over a dry
and excellently well-made road, where everything betokened care and
good tending, till all of a sudden, near the top of the hill they were
climbing, they came to a place where the good road suddenly ended, and
the path beyond was all bog and the wood utterly uncared for, so that
their walk evidently had to come to an end there, and they would have
to retrace their steps.

"Why, Sloane, how is this? This is not like your way of doing things.
Why did you stop short in your good work?" said the grand duke, as
they stood at the limit of the good road, looking out at the slough
beyond them.

"In truth, Your Highness, I was sorry that the good road should break
off here, but the circumstance is easily explained. Here ends the
property of your humble servant, and there begins the property of Your
Royal Highness," said Sloane with a low bow.

"Ha! Is it so? Well, then, I'll tell you what you shall do. You shall
_buy_ it, Sloane, and then you can finish your job," returned the
grand duke.

It is very doubtful whether the Tuscans would have approved of the
_liberality_ of the grand duke's expenditure if he had manifested it,
as his neighbor-sovereigns did, by expending his revenues on
multitudes of show-soldiers. The Tuscan forces of those days were not
exactly calculated for brilliant military display. They were about as
likely to be called on to fight as the scullions in the grand ducal
kitchen, and neither in number, appearance nor _tenue_ were they such
as would have obtained the approval of the lowest officer in the
service of a more military-minded sovereign. However, such as they
were, the grand duke used occasionally--generally on the recurrence of
some great Church festival--to review his troops. On such occasions he
was expected to say something to the men. Poor Ciuco's efforts in that
line often produced effects more amusing to bystanders than impressive
to the objects of his oratory. He was on