THE OLD BRIDGE AT FLORENCE.

TADDEO GADDI built me. I am old, Five centuries old. I plant my foot of stone

Upon the Arno, as St. Michael's own Was planted on the dragon. Fold by fold

Beneath me as it struggles, I behold Its glistening scales. Twice hath it overthrown

My kindred and companions. Me alone

It moveth not, but is by me controlled.

can remember when the Medici Were driven from Florence; longer still ago

The final wars of Ghibelline and
Guelf.

Florence adorns me with her jewelry; And when I think that Michael Angelo

Hath leaned on me, I glory in myself.

Page 11. Coplas de Manrique. This poem of Manrique is a great favorite in Spain. No less than four poetic Glosses, or running commentaries, upon it have been published, no one of which, however, possesses great poetic merit. That of the Carthusian monk, Rodrigo de Valdepeñas, is the best. It is known as the Glosa del Cartujo. There is also a prose Commentary by Luis de Aranda.

The following stanzas of the poem were found in the author's pocket, after his death on the field of battle.

"O World! so few the years we live, Would that the life which thou dost give

Were life indeed!

Alas! thy sorrows fall so fast,

Our happiest hour is when at last
The soul is freed.

"Our days are covered o'er with grief, And sorrows neither few nor brief Veil all in gloom;

Left desolate of real good,
Within this cheerless solitude

No pleasures bloom.

"Thy pilgrimage begins in tears,

And ends in bitter doubts and fears, Or dark despair;

Midway so many

toils appear,

That he who lingers longest here
Knows most of care.

"Thy goods are bought with many a

And weary hearts;

Fleet-footed is the approach of woe, But with a lingering step and slow Its form departs.'

Page 22. My grave!

Nils Juel was a celebrated Danish Admiral, and Peder Wessel, a ViceAdmiral, who for his great prowess received the popular title of Tordenskiold, or Thunder-shield. In childhood he was a tailor's apprentice, and rose to his high rank before the age of twenty-eight, when he was killed in a duel.

Page 26. The Skeleton in Armor.

This Ballad was suggested to me while riding on the sea-shore at Newport. A year or two previous a skeleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armor; and the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors. Professor Rafn, in the Mémoires de la Société Royale des Antiquaires du Nord, for 1838-1839, says:

"There is no mistaking in this instance the style in which the more ancient stone edifices of the North were constructed, the style which belongs to the Roman or Ante-Gothic architecture, and which, especially after the time of Charlemagne, diffused itself from Italy over the whole of the West and North of Europe, where it continued

to predominate until the close of the twelfth century, that style which some authors have, from one of its most striking characteristics, called the round arch style, the same which in England is denominated Saxon and sometimes Norman architecture.

"On the ancient structure in Newport there are no ornaments remaining, which might possibly have served to guide us in assigning the probable date of its erection. That no vestige whatever is found of the pointed arch, nor any approximation to it, is indicative of an earlier rather than of a later period. From such characteristics as remain, however, we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which I am persuaded that all who are familiar with Old-Northern architecture will concur, THAT THIS BUILDING WAS ERECTED AT A PERIOD DECIDEDLY NOT LATER THAN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

This remark applies, of course, to the original building only, and not to the alterations that it subsequently received; for there are several such alterations in the upper part of the building which cannot be mistaken, and which were most likely occasioned by its being adapted in modern times to various uses; for example, as the substructure of a windmill, and latterly as a hay magazine.

To the same times may be referred the windows, the fireplace, and the apertures made above the columns. That this building could not have been erected for a windmill, is what an architect will easily discern."

I will not enter into a discussion of the point. It is sufficiently well established for the purpose of a ballad; though doubtless many a citizen of Newport, who has passed his days within sight of the Round Tower, will be ready to exclaim, with Sancho: "God bless me ! did I not warn you to have a care of what you were doing, for that it was nothing but a windmill; and nobody could mistake it, but one who had the like in his head."

salutation when drinking a health I have slightly changed the orthography of the word, in order to preserve the correct pronunciation.

Page 29.

The Luck of Edenhall.

The tradition upon which this ballad is founded, and the "shards of the Luck of Edenhall," still exist in England. The goblet is in the possession of Sit Christopher Musgrave, Bart., of Eden Hall, Cumberland; and is not so entirely shattered as the ballad leaves it. Page 29. The Elected Knight.

This strange and somewhat mystical ballad is from Nyerup and Rahbek's Danske Viser of the Middle Ages. It seems to refer to the first preaching of Christianity in the North, and to the institution of Knight-Errantry. The three maidens I suppose to be Faith, Hope, and Charity. The irregularities of the original have been carefully preserved in the translation.

Page 46. As Lope says.

"La cólera de un Español sentado no se templa, sino le representan en dos horas hasta el final juicio desde el Génesis." Lope de Vegan

Page 47. Abernuncio Satanas. "Digo, Señora, respondió Sancho, lo que tengo dicho, que de los azotes abernuncio. Abrenuncio, habeis de decir, Sancho, y no como decis, dijo el Duque."-Don Quixote, Part II. ch. 35.

Page 52. Fray Carrillo.

The allusion here is to a Spanish Epigram.

Cosa volete del Padre Francesco?'V' è una bella ragazzina Che si vuole confessar !' Fatte l' entrare, fatte l' entrare ! Che la voglio confessare."

Kopisch. Volksthümliche Poesien aus allen Mundarten Italiens und seiner Inseln, p. 194.

Page 53. Ave! cujus calcem clare. From a monkish hymn of the twelfth century, in Sir Alexander Croke's Essay on the Origin, Progress, and Decline of Rhyming Latin Verse, p. 109.

Page 56. The gold of the Busné. Busné is the name given by the Gypsies to all who are not of their race.

Page 56. Count of the Cales.

The Gypsies call themselves Calés. See Borrow's valuable and extremely interesting work, The Zincali; or an Account of the Gypsies in Spain. London, 1841.

Page 58. Asks if his money-bags would rise.

"¿Y volviéndome á un lado, ví á un Avariento, que estaba preguntando á otro, (que por haber sido embalsamado, y estar léxos sus tripas no hablaba, porque no habian llegado si habian de resucitar aquel dia todos los enterrados) si resucitarian unos bolsones suyos? -El Sueño de las Calaveras.

Page 58. And amen! said my Cid the Campeador.

A line from the ancient Poema del Cid.

'Amen, dixo Mio Cid el Campeador.” Line 3044. Page 58. The river of his thoughts. This expression is from Dante; "Si che chiaro Per essa scenda della mente il fiume.'

Byron has likewise used the expression; though I do not recollect in which of his poems.

Page 59. Mari Franca.

A common Spanish proverb, used to

turn aside a question one does not wish to answer;

"Porque casó Mari Franca

quatro leguas de Salamanca."

Page 59. Ay, soft, emerald eyes. The Spaniards, with good reason; consider this color of the eye as beau tiful, and celebrate it in song; as, for example, in the well-known Villancico: "Ay ojuelos verdes,

ay los mis ojuelos,
ay hagan los cielos
que de mí te acuerdes!

Tengo confianza

de mis verdes ojos." Böhl de Faber. Floresta, No. 255. Dante speaks of Beatrice's eyes as emeralds. Purgatorio, xxxi. 116. Lami says, in his Annotazioni, "Erano i suoi occhi d' un turchino verdiccio, simile a quel del mare."

Page 60. The Avenging Child. See the ancient Ballads of El Infante Vengador, and Calaynos.

Page 60. All are sleeping. From the Spanish. Böhl de Faber. Floresta, No. 282.

Page 66. Good night.

From the Spanish; as are likewise the songs immediately following, and that which commences the first scene of Act III.

"In the Gitano language, casting the evil eye is called Querelar nasula, which simply means making sick, and which, according to the common superstition, is accomplished by casting an evil look at people, especially children, who, from the tenderness of their constitution, are supposed to be more easily blighted than those of a more mature age. After receiving the evil glance, they fall sick, and die in a few hours.

"The Spaniards have very little to say respecting the evil eye, though the