he well knew; but the words of his friend were graven on his heart. So he went into that part of the city, where the rich men resorted, and looking into their faces, chose four, whose countenances best pleased him, and spoke to them as follows. "I guess all of you have got wives, children, or parents, or some comfortable bosoms in this world, where your affections are fixed; it is to the heart, the temple where that affection is shrined, that I now make my appeal. If they were to make a dying request to you, would you not fulfil it?" They looked on one another strangely, and answered, "Yes." He resumed: "I came to Italy, to your Florence here, with a sick friend, the friend of my bosom; he is dead, and gone to oblivion: but as he was humane, kind, and virtuous, his memory lives in my heart, and is freshened with my tears." Here he wept bitterly, and was so full of noble sorrow, that one of the strangers, forgetting his mean apparel, and the strangeness of the thing, feelingly took his hands in his and comforted him; he then went on and explained all to them, saying, "That though his poor friend had not desired him to do this thing, yet as it was the last he could ever do, he had a great hope that it would be fulfilled; though he scarcely saw by what means, unless they would advance
