And it may also be noted from such traditions that folk-lore, when it shall have risen to a sense of its true dignity and power, will not limit itself to collecting variants of fairy tales to prove the routes of races over the earth, but rise to illustrating the characteristic, and even the æsthetic, developments of different stocks. That we are now laying the basis for this is evident. Though the devil dared not depict lives and legends of the saints upon the palace, he did not neglect to put his own ugly likeness there, repeated above the four front windows in a perfectly appalling Gothic style, which contrasts oddly with the later and severe character of the stately building. These faces are fiendish enough to have suggested the story. It may here be mentioned that it was in the middle of the Borgo degli Albizzi, near this palace, that that indefatigable corpse-reviver and worker of miracles, San Zenobio, raised from the dead the child of a noble and rich French lady. “Then in that place there was put a pillar of white marble in the middle of the street, as a token of a great miracle.” “_Hæc fabula docet_—this fable teaches,” adds Flaxius the immortal, “that there was never yet anything left incomplete by neglect or incapacity or poverty, be it in buildings or in that higher structure, man himself, but what it was attributed to the devil. If it had not been for the devil, what fine fellows, what charming creatures, we would all have been to be sure! The devil alone inspires us to sin; _we_ would never have dreamed of it. Whence I conclude that the devil is dearer to man, and a greater benefactor, than all the saints and several deities thrown in, because he serves as a scudaway scapegoat, and excellent excuse for the sins of all the orthodox of all time. How horrible it would be were we all made unto ourselves distinctly responsible for our sins—our unfinished palaces, our good resolutions broken; and how very pleasant it is that it is all the devil’s fault, and not our own! Oh my friends, did I believe as ye do—which I don’t—I would long ago have raised altars and churches to the devil, wherein I would praise him daily as the one who in spirit and in truth takes upon himself the sins of all the world, bearing the burden of our iniquities. For saying which thing, but in other words, the best Christian of his age, Bishop Agobard, was hunted down well-nigh to death. Thus endeth a great lesson!” THE DEVIL OF THE MERCATO VECCHIO