for the botanists tell me, that
nothing makes more litter than the shedding of leaves, which, replace
themselves by others, as on the plants stiled ever-green, which change
like every tree, but only do not change all at once, and remain stript
till spring. They spoke highly of their very kind and hospitable
reception at the convent, where

Safe from pangs the worldling knows,
Here secure in calm repose,
Far from life's perplexing maze,
The pious fathers pass their days;
While the bell's shrill-tinkling sound
Regulates their constant round.

And

Here the traveller elate
Finds an ever-open gate:
All his wants find quick supply,
While welcome beams from every eye.

PARSONS.

This pious foundation of retired Benedictines, situated in the
Appenines, about eighteen miles from Florence, owes its original to
Giovanni Gualberto, a Tuscan nobleman, whose brother Hugo having been
killed by a relation in the year 1015, he resolved to avenge his death;
but happening to meet the assassin alone and in a solitary place,
whither he appeared to have been driven by a sense of guilt, and seeing
him suddenly drop down at his feet, and without uttering a word produce
from his bosom a crucifix, holding it up in a supplicating gesture, with
look submissively imploring, he felt the force of this silent rhetoric,
and generously gave his enemy free pardon.

On further reflection upon the striking scene, Gualberto felt still more
affected; and from seeing the dangers and temptations which surround a
bustling life, resolved to quit the too much mixed society of mankind,
and settle in a state of perpetual retirement. For this purpose he chose
Vallombrosa, and there founded the famous convent so justly admired by
all who visit it.

Such stories lead one forward to the tombs of Michael Angelo and the
great Galileo, which last I looked on to-day with reverence, pity, and
wonder; to think that a change so surprising should be made in worldly
affairs since his time; that the man who no longer ago than the year
1636, was by the torments and terrors of the Inquisition obliged
formally to renounce, as heretical, accursed, and contrary to religion,
the revived doctrines of Copernicus, should now have a monument erected
to his memory, in the very city where he was born, whence he was cruelly
torn away to answer at Rome for the supposed offence; to which he
returned; and strange to tell, in which he li