“‘I knocked,’ resumed Barlacchia, ‘at the gate of heaven, and they asked me who I was, what I had done in the world, and whether I had left any landed property. To which I replied no, never having begged for anything. So they sent me off, saying that they did not want any such poor devils about them—_non volevano là simile dapochi_. And therefore, illustrious Signore, I make so bold as to ask that you would kindly give me some small estate, so that another time I may not be turned away.’ “Which so pleased the magnificent and liberal Lorenzo that he bestowed on Barlacchia a _podere_ or farm. “Now for a long time after this illness, Barlacchia was very pale and haggard, so that everybody who met him (and he was well known to everybody) said, ‘Barlacchia, _mind the rules_’—meaning the rules of health; or else, ‘Barlacchia, look to yourself;’ or _regolati_! or _guardatevi_!—till at last he became tired with answering them. So he got several small wooden rules or rulers, such as writers use to draw lines, and hung them by a cord to his neck, and with them a little mirror, and when any one said ‘_Regolati_’—‘mind the rules,’ he made no reply, but looked at the sticks, and when they cried ‘_Guardatevi_!’ he regarded himself in the mirror, and so they were answered.” This agrees with the sketch of Lorenzo as given by Oscar Browning in his admirable “Age of the Condottieri,” a short history of Mediæval Italy from 1409 to 1530: “Lorenzo was a bad man of business; he spent such large sums on himself that he deserved the appellation of the Magnificent. He reduced himself to poverty by his extravagance; he alienated his fellow-citizens by his lust . . . and was shameless in the promotion of his private favourites.” Yet with all this he was popular, and left a legendary fame in which generosity rivals a love of adventure. I have collected many traditions never as yet published relating to him, and in all he appears as a _bon prince_. “But verily when I consider that what made a gallant lord four hundred years ago would be looked after now by the Lord Chancellor and the law courts with a sharp stick, I must needs,” writes Flaxius, “exclaim with Spenser sweet: “‘Me seemes the world is run quite out of square, For that which all men once did Vertue call, Is now called Vice, and that which Vice was hight Is now hight Vertue, and so used of all; Right now is wrong, and wrong that was, is right, As all things else in time are changed quight.’” LEGENDS OF THE BRIDGES IN FLORENCE “I stood upon a bridge and heard The water rushing by, And as I thought, to every word The water made reply. I looked into the deep river, I looked so still and long, Until I saw the elfin shades Pass by in many a throng.