There are also, among the things worth seeing, the Venus by Giovanni of Boulogne (called di Bologna); the Apollo and Ceres by Baccio Bandinelli; the group of Paris carrying off Helen by V. de’ Rossi, and the old Roman fountain-bath and obelisk. The trees and flowers, shrubbery and _boschetti_, are charming; and if the reader often visits them, long sitting in the sylvan shade on sunny days, he will not fail to feel that strange enchantment which seems to haunt certain places, and people them with dreams, if not with elves. The fascination of these dark arbours old, and of the antique gardens, has been recognised by many authors, and there are, I suppose, few visitors to Florence who have not felt it and recalled it years after in distant lands as one recalls a dream. Therefore, I read with interest or sympathy the following, which, though amounting to nothing as a legend, is still valuable as setting forth the fascination of the place, and how it dates even from him who gave the Boboli Gardens their name: IL GIARDINO BOBOLI. “The Boboli Garden is the most beautiful in Europe. “Boboli was the name of the farmer who cultivated the land before it was bought by Cosimo de’ Medici and his wife Eleanora. “After he had sold the property he remained buried in grief, because he had an attachment for it such as some form for a dog or a cat. And so great was his love for it that it never left his mind, nor could he ever say amen to it; for on whatever subject he might discourse, it always came in like one who will not be kept out, and his refrain was, ‘Well, you’ll see that my place will become _il nido degli amori_ (the nest of loves), and I myself after my death will never be absent from it.’ His friends tried to dissuade him from thinking so much of it, saying that he would end by being lunatic, but he persevered in it till he died. “And it really came to pass as he said; for soon after his death, and ever since, many have on moonlight nights seen his spirit occupied in working in the gardens.” * * * * * The story is a pretty one, and it is strangely paralleled by one narrated in my own Memoirs of the old Penington mansion in Philadelphia, the gardens of which were haunted by a gentle ghost, a lady who had lived there in her life, and who was, after her death, often seen watering the flowers in them by moonlight. And thus do— “printless footsteps fall By the spots they loved before.” The second legend which I recovered, relating to the Boboli Gardens, is as follows: LE DUE STATUE E LA NINFA.