hout fear. What flowers there were
there how various and how ordered, it would take too long to tell, but
there was not one which in our climate is to be praised, which was not
to be found there abundantly. Perhaps the most delightful thing therein
was a meadow in the midst, of the finest grass and all so green that it
seemed almost black, all sprinkled with a thousand various flowers, shut
in by oranges and cedars, the which bore the ripe fruit and the young
fruit too and the blossom, offering a shade most grateful to the eyes
and also a delicious perfume. In the midst of this meadow there was a
fountain of the whitest marble marvellously carved, and within--I do not
know whether artificially or from a natural spring--it threw so much
water and so high towards the sky through a statue which stood there on
a pedestal, that it would not have needed more to turn a mill. The water
fell back again with a delicious sound into the clear waters of the
basin, and the surplus was carried away through a subterranean way into
little waterways most beautifully and artfully made about the meadow,
and afterwards ran into others round about, and so watered every part of
the garden; it collected at length in one place, whence it had entered
the beautiful garden, turning two mills, much to the profit, as you may
suppose, of the signore, and pouring down at last in a stream clear and
sweet into the valley."

If this should seem a mere pleasaunce of delight, the vision of a poet,
the garden of a dream, we have only to remember how realistically and
simply Boccaccio has described for us that plague-stricken city,
scarcely more than a mile away, to be assured of its truthfulness: and
then listen to Alberti--or old Agnolo Pandolfini, is it?--in his
_Trattato del Governo della Famiglia_, one of the most delightful books
of the fifteenth century. He certainly was no poet, yet with what
enthusiasm and happiness he speaks of his villa, how comely and useful
it is, so that while everything else brings labour, danger, suspicion,
harm, fear, and repentance, the villa will bring none of these, but a
pure happiness, a real consolation. Yes, it is really as an escape from
all the care and anxiety of business, of the wool or silk trade, which
he praised so much, that he loves the country. "_La Villa_, the country,
one soon finds, is always gracious, faithful, and true; if you govern it
with diligence and love, it will never be satisfied with what it doe