is own treasure trove.

[Illustration: _Alinari_

Villa Aldobrandini, Frascati. The Grand Cascade and Fountain of Atlas]

Let thus much suffice for apology--now to our legend.

In the Court of the Cascade of that most magnificent of the Frascati
villas, namely that of the Aldobrandini, whoso lists may see to-day two
fountains; the greater, figuring the demigod Atlas, well-nigh crushed
under the weight of our terrestrial globe, is niched conspicuously to
the fore of the grand terrace; but the other is in a hidden pleasance,
and is but a lop-sided vase, considered to have settled thus awry from
the natural subsidence of the soil rather than to have been so placed by
design. Nevertheless, our legend will have this to have been done a
purpose; and there are no acts in all the annals of that illustrious
house more chivalrous or magnanimous than those supposed to be
commemorated by this fountain of Atlas and its fellow of the Spilling
Cup.

And first of Atlas Aldobrandino, lord of that fair estate and many
others in that dim time centuries before the building of the villa.
Atlas was he named not at his baptism, but half in admiration, half in
derision by his mates, for his burliness of body and his inordinate
greediness of all kinds, for he coveted, say they, the entire earth,
clutched at a mighty part thereof, and what he seized upheld manfully.

Beside his Italian possessions he was lord of the whole of Venisi in
Southern France adjoining fair Provence, and though a bachelor of
upwards of seventy-one winters found himself mightily distraught with
love for the fair daughter of his neighbour, the figures of whose age
exactly reversed his own.

Many lords, counts, and barons were sighing suitors for her regard, and
when Aldobrandino, prefacing his request with lavish gifts of steeds,
falcons, and hounds, besought her hand of the great Count of Provence,
her father, the latter, not wishing to offend him, replied:

"I would willingly give her to you, were it not that it might seem
strange to the multitude of young knights eighteen to twenty years of
age now in pursuit of her, lords of Baux, of Toulouse, of Perpignan, and
vavasours of the great Emperor beyond the Rhone, who might all join
together and fall upon me. It is my one desire to live at peace with my
neighbours and to this end I have had to fight many hard battles.
Moreover, the girl herself may have her eye set upon some one of those
fresher sparks who are cont