that, if he should need any help
from them, they would give it as to their own brother.

"What happened to them afterwards, I must be excused from telling; for
they passed through many very strange achievements of the greatest
valor, they fought many battles, and gained many kingdoms, of which if
we should give the story, there would be danger that we should never
have done."

With this tantalizing statement, California and the Queen of California
pass from romance and from history. But, some twenty-five years after
these words were written and published by Garcia Ordonez de Montalvo,
Cortes and his braves happened upon the peninsula, which they thought an
island, which stretches down between the Gulf of California and the sea.
This romance of Esplandian was the yellow-covered novel of their day;
Talanque and Maneli were their Aramis and Athos. "Come," said some one,
"let us name the new island California: perhaps some one will find gold
here yet, and precious stones." And so, from the romance, the peninsula,
and the gulf, and afterwards the State, got their name. And they have
rewarded the romance by giving to it in these later days the fame of
being godmother of a great republic.

The antiquarians of California have universally, we believe, recognized
this as the origin of her name, since Mr. Hale called attention to this
rare romance. As, even now, there are not perhaps half a dozen copies of
it in America, we have transferred to our pages every word which belongs
to that primeval history of California and her Queen.

THE BROTHER OF MERCY.

Piero Luca, known of all the town
As the gray porter by the Pitti wall
Where the noon shadows of the gardens fall,
Sick and in dolor, waited to lay down
His last sad burden, and beside his mat
The barefoot monk of La Certosa sat.

Unseen, in square and blossoming garden drifted,
Soft sunset lights through green Val d'Arno sifted;
Unheard, below the living shuttles shifted
Backward and forth, and wove, in love or strife,
In mirth or pain, the mottled web of life:
But when at last came upward from the street
Tinkle of bell and tread of measured feet,
The sick man started, strove to rise in vain,
Sinking back heavily with a moan of pain.
And the monk said, "'T is but the Brotherhood
Of Mercy going on some errand good:
Their black masks by the palace-wall I see."--
Piero answered faintly, "