“Then the unfortunate girl hearing that her betrothed was being married, and maddened by shame and grief, rushed in her bride’s dress through the streets, and coming to the Bridge delle Grazie, the river being high, threw herself into it and was drowned; still holding the bouquet of orange-blossoms in her hand, she was carried on the torrent into death. “Then the young man, who had discovered the cheat, and whose heart was broken, said, ‘As we were one in life, so we will be in death,’ and threw himself into the Arno from the same place whence she had plunged, and like her was drowned. And the echo from the bridge is the sound of their voices, or of hers. Perhaps she answers to the girls and he to the men; anyhow they are always there, like the hymns in a church.” * * * * * There is a special interest in the first two paragraphs of this story, as indicating how a person who believes in spirits, and is quite ignorant of natural philosophy, explains phenomena. It is precisely in this manner that most early science was confused with superstition; and there is more of it still existing than even the learned are aware of. I know not whether echoes are more remarkable in and about Florence than elsewhere, but they are certainly specially noticed in the local folk-lore, and there are among the witches invocations to echoes, voices of the wind, and similar sounds. One of the most remarkable echoes which I ever heard is in the well of the Villa Guicciardini, now belonging to Sir John Edgar. It is very accurate in repeating every sound in a manner so suggestive of a mocking goblin, that one can easily believe that a peasant would never doubt that it was caused by another being. It renders laughter again with a singularly strange and original effect. Even when standing by or talking near this mystic fount, the echo from time to time cast back scraps of phrases and murmurs, as if joining in the conversation. It is worth observing (_vide_ the story of the Three Horns) that this villa once belonged to—and is, as a matter of course, haunted by the ghost of—Messer Guicciardini, the great writer, who was himself a faithful echo of the history of his country, and of the wisdom of the ancients. Thus into things do things repeat themselves, and souls still live in what surrounded them. I have not seen this mystic well noticed in any of the Florentine guide-books of any kind, but its goblin is as well worthy an interview as many better known characters. Yea, it may be that he is the soul of Guicciardini himself, but when I was there I forgot to ask him if it were so?