pleasant conceits and admirable learning, and such true love of
art that the child breathed it with every breath, as he could
breathe the sweetness of a cowslip-bell when he held one in his
hands up to his nostrils. It was good in those days to live in old
Urbino. It was not, indeed, so brilliant a place as it became in a
later day, when Ariosto came there, and Bembo and Castiglione and
many another witty and learned gentleman, and the Courts of Love
were held with ingenious rhyme and pretty sentiment, sad only for
wantonness. But, if not so brilliant, it was homelier, simpler,
full of virtue, with a wise peace and tranquillity that joined
hands with a stout courage. The burgher was good friends with his
prince, and knew that in any trouble or perplexity he could go up
to the palace, or stop the duke in the market place, and be sure
of sympathy and good counsel. There were a genuine love of
beautiful things, a sense of public duty and of public spirit, a
loyal temper and a sage contentment, among the good people of that
time, which made them happy and prosperous.

All work was solidly and thoroughly done, living was cheap, and
food good and plentiful, much better and more plentiful than it is
now; in the fine old houses every stone was sound, every bit of
ornament well wrought; men made their nests to live in and to pass
to their children and children's children after them, and had
their own fancies and their own traditions recorded in the
ironwork of their casements and in the woodwork of their doors.
They had their happy day of honest toil from matins bell to
evensong, and then walked out or sat about in the calm evening air
and looked down on the plains below that were rich with grain and
fruit and woodland, and talked and laughed among each other, and
were content with their own pleasant, useful lives, not burnt up