111. Draw that red lily then, and fix it in your minds as the sign of
the great change in the temper of Florence, and in her laws, in mid-
thirteenth century; and remember also, when you go to Florence and see
that mighty tower of the Palazzo Vecchio (noble still, in spite of the
calamitous and accursed restorations which have smoothed its rugged
outline, and effaced with modern vulgarisms its lovely sculpture)--
terminating the shadowy perspectives of the Uffizii, or dominant over
the city seen from Fesole or Bellosguardo,--that, as the tower of
Giotto is the notablest monument in the world of the Religion of
Europe, so, on this tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, first shook itself to
the winds the Lily standard of her liberal,--because honest,--commerce.




LECTURE V.

PAX VOBISCUM.

112. My last lecture ended with a sentence which I thought, myself,
rather pretty, and quite fit for a popular newspaper, about the 'lily
standard of liberal commerce.' But it might occur, and I hope did
occur, to some of you, that it would have been more appropriate if the
lily had changed colour the other way, from red to white, (instead of
white to red,) as a sign of a pacific constitution and kindly national
purpose.

113. I believe otherwise, however; and although the change itself was
for the sake of change merely, you may see in it, I think, one of the