against his need; using it now he could never have made a better choice—as, indeed, he guessed. It was as good as a play to watch Borso's wary eyes at the commencement of this piece, and to see them drop their fence as the declamation went on. Lorenzo begins with a pretty description of the dawn on Tuscan hilltops—
"Era già rosso tutto l'oriente,
E le cime de' monti parien d'oro," etc.
Borso, neither approving nor disapproving, kept his head disposed for more. At
"Quando fui desto da certi rumori
Di buon sonagli ed allettar di cani"
he began to blink; with the quick direction to the huntsman—
"Deh, vanne innanzi, presto Capellaio,"
he stifled a smile. But the calling of the hounds by their names broke down his guard. Angioletto shrilled them out in a high, boyish voice—
"Chiama Tamburo, Pezuolo e Martello,
La Foglia, la Castagna e la Guerrina,
Fagiano, Fagianin, Rocca e Capello,
E Friza, e Biondo, Bamboccio e Rossina,
Ghiotto, la Torta, Viola e Pestello,
E Serchio e Fuse e'l mio Buontempo vecchio,
Zambraco, Buratel, Scaccio e Pennecchio. . . ."
Every muscle of the keen old hunter was now quivering; his eyes were bright, his smile open and that of a child. To the last word of the poem—and it has length—he followed without breath the checks, the false casts, the bickering
