I can, however, inform the reader as to the incantation which is needed to call to the spirit of the well to settle this question. Take a copy of his “Maxims” and read them through; then drink off one glass of wine to the health of the author, and, bending over the well, distinctly cry—“Sei Messer Guicciardini, di cosi?”—strongly accentuating the last syllable. And if the reply be in the affirmative, you may draw your own conclusions. For those who are not Italianate, it will do quite as well if they cry, “Guicciardini? No or yes?” For even this echo is not equal to the Irish one, which to “_How do you do_?” replied, “Pretty well, I thank you!”
There is a very good story of the Ponte alle Grazie, anciently known as the Rubaconte, from the Podestà in whose year of office it was built, told originally by Sachetti in his _Novelle_ and Manni, _Veglie Piacevoli_, who drew it indeed from Venetian or Neapolitan-Oriental sources, and which is best told by Leader Scott in “The Echoes of Old Florence.” It still lives among the people, and is briefly as follows, in another form:
“There was once in Florence a Podestà or chief magistrate named Rubaconte, and he had been chosen in the year 1236, nor had he been long in office when a man called Bagnai, because he kept a public bath, was brought before him on the charge of murder.
“And Bagnai, telling his tale, said: ‘This is the very truth—_ne favola ne canzone di tavola_—for I was crossing the river on the little bridge with a hand-rail by the Palazzo Mozzi, when there came riding over it a company of gentlemen. And it befell that I was knocked over the bridge, and fell on a man below who was washing his feet in the Arno, and lo! the man was killed by my dropping on him.’
“Now to the Podestà this was neither eggs nor milk, as the saying is, and he could at first no more conclude on it than if one had asked him, ‘_Chi nacque prima—l’uovo o la gallina_?’ ‘Which was born first—the hen or the egg?’ For on one side the _bagnajolo_ was innocent, and on the other the dead man’s relations cried for vengeance. But after going from one side of his brain to the other for five minutes, he saw ‘from here to the mountain,’ and said:
“‘Now I have listened to ye both, and this is a case where one must—