 Chapter 1 of glimpses of Italian society in the 18th century From the journey of Mrs Piumsy This is a LibriVox recording on LibriVox recordings in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Glimpses of Italian society in the 18th century by Hester Lynch Piumsy Chapter 1 Turin and Genoa October 17, 1784 We have a length past the Alps and are safely arrived in this lovely little city Whence I look back on the majestic boundaries of Italy With amazement at his courage who first profaned them Surely the immediate sensation conveyed to the mind by the sight of such tremendous appearances Must be in every traveller the same, a sensation of fullness never experienced before A satisfaction that there is something great to be seen on earth Some object capable of contending even fancy I had the satisfaction of seeing a shammy at a distance I spoke with a fellow who had killed five hungry bears that made depredation on his pastures We looked on him with reverence as a monster tamer of antiquities, hercules, or tadmas He had the skin of a beast wrapped around his middle, which confirmed the fancy But our servants who borrowed from no fictitious records the few ideas that adorned their talk Told us he reminded them of John the Baptist I'd scarce be covered from the shock of this two sublime comparison When we approached his cottage and found the felons nailed against the wall Like foxes heads all spread kites in England There are many goats, but neither white nor large like those which browse upon the steeps of Snowden Or clamber among the cliffs of Plain Lemon Chattered with the peasant in the haute marienne concerning the endemial swelling of the throat Which is found in seven under every ten persons here He told me what I had always heard, but do not yet believe That it was produced by drinking the snow water Certain it is these places are not wholesome to live in Most of the inhabitants have troubled with weak and sore eyes And I recollect Sir Richard Jeb telling me more than seven years ago that When he passed through Savoy, the various applications made to him either for the cure Or prevention of blindness by numberless unfortunate wretches that crowded round him Hastened his quitting a province where such horrible complaints prevailed One has heard it related that the goiter or gozzo of the throat Is reckoned a beauty by those who possess it But I spoke with many and all agreed to lament it as a misfortune That it does really proceed merely from living in a snowy country Would be well confirmed by accounts of a similar sickness being endemial in Canada But of an American goiter I had never yet heard And Wales, me thinks, is snowing enough and mountainous enough, God knows Yet was such an exquisite to be seen there That people would never have done with wondering and blessing themselves As for Mount Sene, I never felt myself more hungry Or better enjoyed a good dinner than I did upon its top But the trout in the lake there have been overpraised Their pale colour all lured me but little in the first place Nor is their flavour equal to that of trout found in running water Going down the Italian side of the Alps is, after all, an astonishing journey And affords the most magnificent scenery and nature Which, varying at every step, gives new impression to the mind each moment of one's passage While the portion of terror excited either by real or fancy dangers on the way Is just sufficient to mingle with the pleasure and make one feel the full effect of sublimity To the chairman who carry one, though nothing can be new It is observable that the glories of these objects have never faded I heard them speak to each other of their beauties And the change of light since they had passed by last time While a fellow who spoke English as well as a native Told us that having lived in a gentleman's service twenty years between London and Dublin He at length begged his discharge, choosing to retire And to finish his days appesant upon these mountains Where he first opened his eyes upon scenes that made all other views of nature Insipid to his taste If impressions of beauty remain however Those of danger die away by frequent repetition The men who carried me seemed amazed that I should feel any emotions of fear Guess a don, madame Quote What's the matter, my lady? End note Was the coldly asked question to my repeated injunction of Prenez-garde Note, take care, end note Not very apparently unnecessary neither Where the least slip must have been fatal both to them and me The avenue to Turin Most to make magnificently planted and drawn in a wide straight line Shaded like the birdcage walk in St. James's Park For twelve miles in length is a dull work But very useful and convenient in so hot a country It is being completed by the taste and at the sole expense of His sardinean majesty That he may enjoy a cool, shady drive from one of his palaces to the other The town to which this long approach conveys one Does not disgrace its entrance It is built in the form of a star with a large stone in the centre On which you will decide to stand and see the streets or branch regularly from it Each street terminating with a beautiful view of the surrounding country Like spots of ground seen in many of the old fashioned parks in England When the eight-trile and vista were the mode I think there is still one subsisting even now If I remember right in Kensington Gardens This charming town is the Salon of Italy But it is a finely proportioned and well ornamented Salon Happily constructed to call in the fresh air at the end of every street Through which a rapid stream is directed That ought to carry off all nuisances Which here have no apology For want of any convenience, noticeable my money And which must for that reason be the choice Of inhabitants who would perhaps be too happy Had their natural taste for that neatness Which might be here enjoyed in its purity The archers fallen to defend passengers from rain and sun Which here might have even serious effects from their violence Deserve much praise While their architecture uniting our ideas of comfort and beauty together Form a traveller's taste and teach him to admire that Perfection of which a miniature may certainly be found at Turin When once a police shall be established there To prevent such places being used for the very grossest purposes While polluted with smells that poison all one's pleasure Some letters from home directed me to inquire in this town For Dr. Charles Alione, who kindly received And permitted me to examine the rarities of which he has A very capital collection His fossil fish in slate, blue slate Are surprisingly well preserved But there is in the world it seems a crystallised trout Not flat nor the flesh eaten away as I understand it But round and as it were cased in crystal Like our aspects or fruit and jelly The colour still so perfect that you may plainly perceive The spots upon it, he says To my inquiries after this wonderful petrification He replied that it might be bought for a thousand pounds And added that if he were a rico inbilese Note, rich Englishman and note He would not hesitate for the price Where may I see it, sir, sir I? But to that question no entreaties could produce an answer After he once found I had no mind to buy And the freshwater fish have been known to remain locked In the flinty bosom of Monta Ura in Tanya The Academical Discourse of Cerella di Cremona Pronounced there in the year 1749 Might have informed us And we are all familiar I suppose with the anchor Named in the 15th Book of Ovid's Metamorphosis Strabo mentions pieces of a galley Found 3,000 stadiae from the sea And Dr. Elione tells me that Monte Bolca Has been long acknowledged to contain the fossils Now diligently digging out under the patronage Of some learned naturalists at Verona The trout however Is of value much beyond these productions certainly As it is closed round as if in a transparent case We find hermetically sealed by soft hand of nature Who spoiled none of her own ornaments In preserving them for the inspection Of her favorite students The amiable old professor from whom These particulars were obtained And who endured my teasing him in bad Italian For intelligence he cared not to communicate With infinite sweetness and patience Good kinder to me as I became More troublesome to him And showing me the book upon botany to which He had just then put the last line Turned his demise from me And said as they filled with tears You madam are the last visitor I shall ever More admit to talking upon firstly matters My work is done I finished it as you were entering My business now is but to wait The bullet of God and die Do you who I hope will live long and happily Seek out your own salvation And pray for mine Poor dear Dr. Allione My enquiries concerning this truly venerable mortal Ended in being told that his relations and heirs Teased him cruelly to sell his manuscripts Insects etc And divide the money amongst them before he died An English scholar of the same abilities Will be apt enough to despise such admonitions And dispose of his own liking and leisure Of what his industry alone had gained His learning alone collected But there seems to be much more family fondness On the continent than on our island More attention to parents More care for uncles and nephews and sisters and aunts Than in a commercial country like ours Where for the most part each one makes his own way separate And having received little assistance At the beginning of life Considered himself as little indebted at the close of it Whoever takes a long journey However he may at his first commencement Be tempted to accumulate schemes of convenience And combinations of travelling niceties Will cast them off in the course of his travels As encumbrances And whoever sets out in life, I believe With a crowd of relations around him Will on the same principle Feel disposed to drop one or two of them at every turn As they hang about and impede his progress And make his own game single-handed I speak of Englishmen Whose religion and government Inspire rather a spirit of public benevolence Than contract the social affections to a point And cooperate besides to prompt that Genius for adventure and taste of general knowledge Which a small chance to spring up in the inhabitants Of a feudal state Where each considers his family as himself And having derived all the comfort he has ever enjoyed From his relations Resolves to return their favours at the end of a life Which they make happy in proportion as it is so And this accounts for the equality Required in continental marriages Which are avowedly made here Without regard to incarnation As the keeping up of family The choice of a companion is considered as important While the lady, bred up in the same notions Complies with her first duties And considers the second as infinitely more dispensable The sure-footed and docile mule With which in England I was but little acquainted Here claims no small attention From his superior size and beauty The disagreeable noise they make so frequently however Hinders one from wishing to ride them It is not braying somehow But worse, it is naying out of tune I have put nothing down about eating Since we arrived in Italy Where no Richard Hutt I have yet entered Does not afford soup better Than one often tastes in England Even at magnificent tables Game of all sorts, woodcocks in particular Porparati, the so justly famed engraver Produced upon his hospitable board One of the pleasant days we passed with him A couple so exceedingly large That I hesitated and looked again To see whether they were really woodcocks Till the long bill convinced me One reads some luxurious emperors That made fine dishes of the little bird's brains Finicopters, tongues, etc And of the actor who regaled his guests With nightingale pie With just detestation Of such curiosity and expense But thrushes, larks and blackbirds Are so very frequent between Turin and Novi I think they might serve to feed All the fantastical appetites To which Fatalius himself Could give encouragement and example The Italians retain their tastes For small birds in full force And consider Becchifichi, Oralani, etc As the most agreeable dainties It must be confessed That they dress them incomparably The sheep here are all lean And dirty looking Few in number too But the better the soil the worse the mutton we know And here is no land to throw away Where every inch turns to profit In the olive yards, vines Or something much higher value Than letting out to feed sheep Population seems much as in France I think But the families are not in either nation Disposed according to British notions of propriety All stuffed together Into little towns and large houses On Tasse, as the French call it One upon another In such a strange way that were it not For the quantity of grapes On which the poor people live With other, assesent food And joined by the church And doubtless suggested by the climate I think putrid fevers must Necessarily carry off crowds of them at once The headdress of the women in this drive Through some of the northern states of Italy Buried at every post From the velvet cap, commonly a crimson one Worn by the girls in Savoye To the piedmontes Platt round the bodkin at Turin And the odd kind of white wrapper Used in the exterior provinces Of the Genoese dominions Uniformity of almost any sort Gives a certain pleasure to the eye And it seems an imbarable rule in these countries That all the women of every district Should dress just alike It is the best way of making the men's task Easy and judging which is handsomest For taste so varies the human figure In France and England That it is impossible to have an idea How many pretty faces And agreeable forms would lose And how many gain-admirers in those nations Were a sudden edict to be published That all should dress exactly alike for a year Meantime, since we left the science No such delightful place by way of in Have we yet seen as here at Novi? My chief amusement at Alessandria Was to look out upon the huddled marketplace As a great dramatic writer of our day Has called it And who could have longing there For Zophanie's pencil to paint The light of this scene? Passing the Po by moonlight near Casale Exhibited an entertainment of a very different nature Not unmixed with ill-concealed fear, indeed Though the contrivance of crossing it Is not worse managed than a ferriet cure Richmond used to be before our bridges were built Bridges over the Rapid Po Would, however, be truly ridiculous When swelled by the mountain snows It tears down all before it is fury And inundates the country round Genua la Saperba Stands proudly on the margin of a gulf crowded with ships And resounding with voices which never fell to animate The British hero, the sailor's shot The mariners call Swelled by successful commerce Or strengthened by newly acquired fame The Dorian Palace is exceedingly fine The Dorazzo Palace, for what I know, is finer And marble here seems like What one reads of silver in King Solomon's time Which, says the scripture, Was nothing counted of in the days of Solomon Casa Brignoli, too, is splendid and comodious The terraces and gardens on the housetops And the fresco paintings outside Give one new ideas of human life And exhibits a degree of luxury unthought of In colder climates But here we live on green peas and figs The first day of November While orange and lemon trees flaunt over the walls More common than pears in England The Balbi Mansion, filled with pictures Detained us from the churches filled with more I have heard some of the Italians confess That Genema even pretends to vie with Rome herself In Ecclesiastical splendor In devotion I should think she would be With difficulty outdone The people drop down on their knees in the street And crowd to the church doors While the benediction is pronouncing with a zeal Which one might hope would draw down Those of grace upon their heads Yet I hear from inhabitants of other provinces That they have a bad character among their neighbours Who love not the base Ligurian And accuse them of many immoralities They tell one too of a disreputable saying here How there are a Genua, men without honesty Women without modesty A sea with no fish And a wood with no birds Birds, however, here certainly are by the million And we have eaten fish since we came every day But I'm informed they are neither cheap nor plentiful Nor considered as excellent in their kinds Here is macaroni enough, however The people bring in such a vast dish of it At a time it disgusts one The streets of the town are much too narrow For beauty or convenience Impracticable to coaches And so beset with beggars that it is dreadful A chair is there for above all things Necessary to be carried in Even a dozen steps If you are likely to feel shocked At having your knees suddenly clasped By a figure hardly human Who, perhaps holding you forcibly for a minute Countess you loudly by the sacred wounds of our Lord Jesus Christ To have compassion upon his Showing you at the same time Such undeniable and horrid proofs Of the anguish he is suffering That one must be a monster to quit him unreleaved Such pathetic misery Such disgusting distress did I never see before As I have been witnessed to in this gaudy city And that not occasionally or by accident But all day long And in such numbers that humanity shrinks From the description Sure charity is not the virtue that they pray for When begging a blessing at the church door One should not, however, speak unkindly Of a people whose affectionate regard For our country showed itself so clearly During the last war A few days' residence with the English consul Here at his country's seat Gave me an opportunity of hearing many instances Of the Republic's generous attachment to Great Britain Whose triumphs such a bolder of the united forces Of France and Spain Were honestly enjoyed by the friendly Genoese Who gave many proofs of their sincerity More solid than those clamorous ones Of hazzying our minister about wherever he went And crying, viva ill-general Elliot By many young gentlemen of high fashion Offered themselves to go volunteers aboard our fleet And were with difficulty restrained The sea air, except in particular places Where the land lies in some direction That counteracts its influence Is naturally inimical to timber Though the green coasts of Devonshire Are finely fringed with wood Here at La Molina's villa in the Genoese state I found two plain trees Of a size and a serious dignity That recalled to my mind the solemn oak Before a Duke of Dorset's seat at Null And chestnuts which would not disgrace The forests of America A rural theatre cut in turf With a concealed orchestra and sodd seats For the audience with a mossy stage In comodious neither And an admirable contrivance For shifting the scenes And favouring the exits, entrances, etc. Of the performers Gave me a perfect idea of that refined luxury Which hot countries alone inspire While another elegantly constructed spot Meant and often used for the entertainment Of tenants and dependents Who come to rejoice on the birth Or wedding day of a kind landlord May one suppress one's size After a free country At least suspend them And fill one's heart with tenderness Towards men who have the skill To soften authority with indulgence And virtue to reward obedience With protection A family coming last night to visit At a house where I had the honour Of being admitted as an intimate Gave me another proof of my present State of remoteness from English manners The party consisted of an old nobleman Who could trace his genealogy unblemished Up to one of the old Roman emperors But his fortune is now in a hopeless state of decay His lady not inferior to himself In birth or haughtiness of air and carriage But much impaired by age, ill health And pecuniary distresses These had however in no way Lessened her ideas of her own dignity Or the respect of her cavalier Serventa and her son Who waited on her with an unremitted attention Presenting her their little Dirty tin snuffboxes upon one knee by turns Which ceremony the less surprised me As having seen her train Made of dyed and watered loot string Born gravely after her upstairs by a footman The express image of Edgar In the storm scene of King Lear Who, as the fool says, wisely reserved a blanket Else we had all been shamed Our conversation was meager but serious There was music, and the door being Left the gyros, we call it I watched the wretched servant Who stayed in the ante chamber And to found that he was listening In spite of sorrow and disturbing End of chapter one Chapter two part one Of the glimpses of Italian society In the eighteenth century By Hester Lynch Piodzi This libybox recording is in the public domain Milan Our weather has suddenly become so wet The road so heavy with incessant rain That King William's departure from his own Foggy country or his welcome to our gloomy one Where this month is melancholy even to a proverb Could not have been cluttered with a thicker atmosphere Surely than was mine to Milan Upon the fourth day of dismal November 1784 Italians, by what I can observe Suffer their minds to be much under the dominion of the sky And attribute every change in their health or even humour As seriously to its influences As if there were no newer cause of alteration Than the state of the air And as if no doubt remained of its immediate power Though they're willing enough here to poison it With the scent of wood ashes within doors When fires in the great seem to run rather low And abrasion full of that pernicious stuff Is substituted in its place And driven under the table during dinner It is surprising how very elegant Not to say magnificent of those denizare In gentlemen's or nobleman's houses Such numbers of dishes at once Not large joints but infinite variety And I think they're cooking excellent Fashion keeps most of the fine people out of town yet We have therefore had leisure to establish our own household For the winter and have done so as Commodiously as if our habitation was fixed here for life This I am delighted with As one may chance to gain that insight Into everyday behaviour and common occurrences Which can alone be called knowing something of a country Counting churches, pictures, palaces May be done by those who run from town to town With no impression made but on their bones Candour and good human willingness to receive And reciprocate pleasure seems indeed One of the standing virtues of Italy I have as yet seen no fastidious contempt Or affected rejection of anything for being What we call low And I have a notion there is much less Of those distinctions at Milan than at London Where birth does so little for a man If he depends on that and for there's other methods Of distinguishing himself from his footmen He will stand a chance of being treated No better than him by the world Here a person's rank is ascertained And his society settled at his immediate entrance Into life A gentleman and lady will always be regarded As such that what will be their behaviour It is therefore highly commendable When they seek to adorn their minds by culture Or pluck out those weeds which in hot countries Will spring up among the riches of the harvest And afford a sure but no immediately pleasing Proof of the soil's natural fertility But my country-women would rather hear A little of our anterior Or as we call it family management Which appears arranged in a manner totally new to me Who find the lady of every house as unacquainted with her own And her husband's affairs As I who apply to her for information No house account, no weekly bills Perplex her peace If eight servants are kept We will say six of these are men And two of those men out of livery The pay of these principal figures in a family When at the highest rate Is 15 pence English a day Out of which they find clothes and eating For 15 pence includes board wages And most of these fellows are married Two and have four or five children each The dinners dressed at home are for this reason More exactly contrived than in England To suit the number of guests And there are always half a dozen For dining alone or the master and mistress Teter-teter as we do Is unknown to them Who make society very easy And resolve to live much together No odd sensation then something like shame Such as we feel when too many dishes Are taken empty from table Touches them at all The common causes are eleven And eleven small plates And it is their sport and pleasure If possible to clear all away A footman's wages is a shitting a day Like our common labourers And paid him as they are paid Every Saturday night His livery meantime changed At least twice a year Makes him as rich a man as the butler And valet But when evening comes It is the comicalest sight in the world To see them all go gravely home And you may die in the night for what of help Though surrounded by showy attendants all day Till the hour of departure however It is expected that two or three of them at least Sit in the anti-chamber as it is called To answer the bell which If we can best the truth There's no slight service or hardship For the stairs high and wide As those of Windsor Palace or Stone too Run up from the door immediately to that apartment Which is very large and very cold With bricks to set their feet on only And a brazier filled with warm wood ashes To keep their fingers from freezing Which in summer they employ with cards And to see but little inclined to lay them down When ladies pass through to the receiving room The strange familiarity this class of people Think proper to assume Half joining in the conversation and crying Oh boy, note, oh dear End note, when the master affirms something They do not quite ascent to Is up to shock one at beginning The more when one reflects upon the equally Offensive humility they show On being first accepted into the family When it is expected that they receive The new master's or lady's hand In a half kneeling posture and kiss it As women under the rank of countess Do the Queen of Englands when presented At our court. This obsequiousness however vanishes Completely upon acquaintance and the footman If not very seriously admonished indeed Yewns, spits and displays But one of our travel writers emphatically Transcends his flag of abomination Behind the chair of a woman of quality Without the slightest sensation Of its impropriety. There is however a sort of odd Fastical drollery mingled with this grossness Which tends greatly to disarm one's wrath And I felt more inclined to laugh Than be angry one day when From the head of my own table I saw the servant of a nobleman With his cramming some chicken patties Down his throat behind the door Our own folks humorously trying to choke him By pretending that his lord called him While his mouth was full Of a thousand comical things in the same way I will relate one. Mr. Piazzis Vellet was dressing My hair at Paris one morning When some man sat at an opposite window Of the same inn singing and playing Upon the violin cello. I had not observed the circumstance But my Prussia's distress was evident. He rised and twisted about Like a man pinched with a colic And pulled a hundred queer faces. At last, but it's the matter Ercolami said I, are we not well? Mistress replies the fellow If that beast don't leave off soon I shall run mad with rage Or else die. And so you'll see an honest Phoenician lad Killed by a French dog's howling. The phrase of Mistress is here Not confined to servants at all. Gentlemen, when they address one cry Mia Padrona, note my mistress End note, mighty sweetly And in a peculiarly pleasing tone. Nothing to speak truth can exceed The agreeableness of a well-bred Italian's Address when speaking to a lady Whom they alone know how to flatter So as to retain her dignity And not lose their own. Respectful yet tender, attentive Not officious. The politeness of a man of fashion Here is true politeness Free from all affectation And honestly expressive of what He really feels. A true value for the person spoken to Without the smallest desire Of shining himself Equally removed from robbery on one side Or indifference on the other. The manners of the men here Are certainly pleasing to a very eminent degree And in their conversation there is a mixture Not unfrequent too Of classical allusions Which strike one with a sort of Literary pleasure I cannot easily describe Yet there is no pedantry in their use Of expressions which with us Will be laughable or liable to censure But Roman notions here Are not quite extinct And even the housemaid or Donna di Gross As they call her swears by Diana So comically there is no telling They christen their boys Fabius Their daughters Claudia Very commonly When they mention a thing known As we say to Thomas Stiles or Donna Nokes They use the words Tizio and Sampronio A lady tells me she was at a loss About the dance yesterday evening Because she had not been instructed In the programa And a gentleman talking of the pleasures He enjoyed sobbing last night That a friend's house exclaims Erum opposerri ferra in Apolline Note we passed yesterday evening As if we had been in the Apollo End note Alluding to the Colours' entertainment Given to Pompey and Cicero As I remember it in the Chamber of Apollo But here is enough of this More of it in their own pretty phrase Sekarabipu netuno Note would dry up old Neptune himself End note It was long ago the Rosonias Said of them more than I can say And Mr. Rattison has translated the lines In their praise better than I could have done Et medialani mere omnia copiarerum Inumirai cultai quedomas Facunde verorani ingenia Et morees leti Melan with plenty and with wealth Lover flows And numerous streets And cleanly dwellings shows The people best by nature's happy force Are eloquent and cheerful in discourse What I have said this moment Will however account in some measure For a thing which he treats With infinite contempt Not unjustly perhaps It does it not deserve the ridicule Handed down from his time By all who have touched the subject It is about the author who before His theatrical representation Prefixes an odd declaration That though he names Pluto and Neptune And I know not who, upon the stage Yet he believes none of these fables But considers himself as a Christian A Catholic, et cetera All this does appear very absurdly Superfluous to us But as I observed they live nearer The original seats of paganism Many old customs are yet retained And the names not lost among them Were laid up many for literary purposes As in England They swear pervaco Perpetually in common discourse And once I saw a gentleman In the heat of conversation Blush at the recollection That he had said Barway orbe When he meant God Almighty By the indulgence of private friendship I have now enjoyed the uncommon amusement Of seeing a theatrical exhibition Performed by fries in a convent For their own diversion And that of some select friends The monks of St. Victor had it seems Obtained permission, this carnival To represent a little odd sort of play Written by one of their community Chiefly in the Milanese dialect Though the upper characters spoke Tuscan The subject of this drama Was taken naturally enough From some events real or fictitious Which were supposed to have happened In the environs of Milan about a hundred years ago When the Toriani and Visconti families Disputed for superiority Its construction was compounded Of comic and distressful scenes Of which the last gave me most delight And much was amazed indeed To feel my cheeks wet with tears That a friar's play Founded on ideas of parental tenderness The comic part I webber was intolerably gross The joke's coarse And incapable of diverting any but babies Or men who by a kind of intellectual privation Contrived to perpetuate babyhood In the vain hope of preserving innocence Nor could I flatter myself By saying how little I understood the dialect It was written in As the action was nothing less than equivocal And in the Borreletta Which was tacked to by way of farce I saw the soprano singers who played the women's parts And who see more of the world than these friars Blush for shame two or three times By the company most of the grave ecclesiastics Applauded with rapturous delight There were some lengths that the whole Would however have surfeted me Had the amusement to be more eligible But these dear monks Do not get a holiday off and I trust So in the manner of schoolboys Or rather schoolgirls in England For our boys are soon above such stuff They were never tired of this dull buffoonery And kept us listening to it till one o'clock in the morning Pleasure when it does come Always bursts up in an unexpected place I'd arrive much from observing in the faces Of these cheerful friars That intelligent shrewdness and arch penetration So visible in the countenances of our Welsh farmers And curates of country villages In Flintshire, Knavenshire, etc Which Howell, best judge in such a case Observes in his letters and learnedly accounts for But which I had hardly forgotten Till amongst us and a victor brought it back To my remembrance The brothers who remained unemployed And clear from stage occupations Formed the orchestra Those who were left then Without any immediate business upon their hands Chatted gaily with the company Producing plenty of refreshments And I was really very angry With myself appearing so cynically disposed When everything possible was done to please me The Christmas functions here were showy And I thought, well contrived The public ones are what I speak of But I was present lately at a private merry-making Where all distinctions seemed pleasingly thrown down By a spirit of innocent gaiety The Marquis' daughter mingled in country dances With the apothecary's apprentice While her truly noble parents Worked on with generous pleasure And encouraged the most of the moment Priests, ladies, gentlemen of the very first quality Rocked with the girls of the house In high good humour And tripped it away without the encumbrance Of petty pride Was a mean vanity of giving What they expressively call Sogettione To those who were proud of their company And protection A new-married wench Whose little fortune of a hundred crowns Have been given her by the subscription Of many in the room Seemed as free with them all As the most equal distribution of birth or riches Could have made her She laughed aloud And rattled in the ears of the gentleman Replied with sarcastic coarseness When they joked her And apparently delighted To promote such conversation As they would not otherwise have tried at The ladies shuddered for joy Encouraged the girl with less delicacy Than desire of merriment And promoted a general banishment of decorum Though I do believe with as full as much or more Purity of intention Than may often be met within a polished circle At Paris itself Such society, however Can please a stranger only as it is old And as it is new When ceremony ceases Hilarity has let them astate too natural Not to offend people accustomed to scenes Of high civilisation And I suppose few of us could return up The twenty-five years old To the coarse comforts of a roll and treacle Another style of amusement Very different from this last Called us out two or three days ago To hear the famous Passione of metastasio Sung in St.Celso's church The building is spacious The architecture elegant The ornaments rich The costum too was in this occasion Emitted which I dislike exceedingly That of deforming the beautiful Edifices dedicated to God's service With damask hangings and gold lace On the capitals of all the pillars Upon days of gala So very perversely that The effect of proportions is lost to the eye While the church conveys no idea To the mind but of a tattered theatre And when the pripery decorations fade Nothing can exclude the recollection Of an old clothes shop St.Celso was however left clear From these disgraceful ornaments They're assembled together in numerous And brilliant if not attentive audience And St. Peter's part in the oratoria Was sung by a soprano voice Your appearance of peculiar propriety To be sure It is now time to talk a little of the theatre And surely a receptacle so capacious To contain 4,000 people A place of entrance so commodious To receive them A show so princely so very magnificent To entertain them Must be sought in vain out of Italy The centre front box Richly adorned with gilding arms and trophies Is appropriated to the court Whose canopy is carried up to what we call The first gallery in England The crescent of boxes ending with the stage Consists of 19 on a side Small boudoirs for such they seem And are as such fitted up With silk hangings, jewells Placed so judiciously as to catch Every sound of the singers They do but whisper I will not say it is equally advantageous To the figure as to the voice No performers looking adequate To the place they reside upon So very stately as the building itself Being all of stone with an immense portico And stairs which were with you might Without hyperbole drive your chariot up An immense sideboard at the first lobby Lightened and furnished with luxurious And elegant plenty as many people Send for suppers to their box And entertain a lot of friends there With infinite convenience and splendour The silk curtain, the colour of your hangings Defends the closet from in trues of eyes If you think proper to drop it And when drawn up it gives gait and show To the general appearance of the whole But across the corridor leading to these Boxes another small chamber Numbered like that belongs to Is appropriated to the use of your servants And furnished with every convenience To make chocolate, serve lemonade, etc Can one wonder at the contempt Shown by foreigners when they see English women of fashion squeezed Into holes lined with dirty torn red paper And the walls of it covered With wretched crimson stuff Well, but this theatre is built in place Of a church founded by the famous Badrich Shadeskala. In consequence of a vow she made To erect one if God would be pleased To send her a son. The church was pulled down And the playhouse erected. The archduke lost a son that year And the pious folks cried a judgement But nobody minded them, I believe. Many, however, that a scrupulous Will not go. Meantime it is a beautiful theatre To be sure. The finest fabric raised in modern Days, I do believe, of the purposes Of entertainment. But we must not be partial. While London has twelve capital rooms For the professed amusement of the public The land has but one. There is in it, however, A ridotto chamber for cards Of a noble size Where some little gaming goes on In carnival time. But though the inhabitants complain Of the enormities committed there I suppose more money is lost In one at one club In St. James's Street during a week. Then here at Milan in the whole winter That neither complaints nor rejoicings Here at Milan proceed to a mafictation Is a choice comfort. The lombards possessed the skill To please you without feigning. And so artless are their manners You cannot even suspect them of insincerity. They have perhaps for that very reason Few comedies and fewer novels among them For the worst of every man's character Is already well known to the rest. But be his contact what it will. The heart is commonly right enough. Il buon cuor lombardo Is famed throughout all Italy. And nothing can become proverbial Without an excellent reason. Little opportunity, therefore, Is given to writers who carried the dark Lantern of life into its deepest recesses. Unwind the hidden wickedness Of a maskwell or a mountain. Develop the folds of vice And inspire to the internal Worstlessness of apparent virtue Which from these discerning eyes Cannot be cloaked Even by the early taught affectation Which renders it a real ingenuity To discover even a highly polished Capital a man or woman has Or has not good parts or principles. So completely other first Overlaid with literature And the last perverted by refinement. End of chapter two, part one. Chapter two, part two Of glimpses of Italian society In the eighteenth century By Hester Lynch Piodsi. This LibriVox recording Is in the public domain. Milan, part two. April the second, 1785. The cold weather continues still And we have heavy snows. But so admirable is the police Of this well-regulated town That when overnight it has fallen To the height of four feet. No very uncommon occurrence. No one can see in the morning That even a flake has been there. So completely to the poor And the prisoners riddice of it all By throwing immense loads of it Into a navigable tunnel That runs quite round the city And carries every nuisance With it clearly away So that no inconveniences Can arise. Terrians seem to have no feeling Cold. They open the casements For windows, we have none. Now in winter and crime Che bellreschetto. Note, what a fresh breeze. End note. While I am starving outright. If there is a flash Of a few faggots in the chimney That just scorches one a little No lady goes near it But sits at the other end Of a high-roofed room Round her ears and her feet Upon a perforated brass box Filled with wood embers Which the cavalier Savente Pulls out from time to time And replenishes with hotter ashes Raked out from between the andioms. How sitting with these fumes Under their petticoats improves Their beauty of complexion I know not. Certain it is they pity us Succeedingly for our manner Of managing ourselves In inquire of their countrymen Who have lived there a while How their health endured The burning fossils in the chambers At London. I've heard two or three Italian say For reanchillo Veda a quale interpera Mah. Questa cabona e fossere. Note, I would go see This same England myself, I think But that fuel made of minerals Frights me. To church however And to the theatre Ladies have a great green Velvet bag carried for them Adorned with gold tassels And lined with fur To keep their feet from freezing As carpets Are not in use here. Poor women run about the streets With a little earthen Pipkin hanging on their arm Filled with fire Even if they are sent on an errand Men of all ranks walk Wrapped up in an odd sort of White riding coat Not buttoned together but Folded round their body After the fashion of the old Roman dress one has seen in statues And this they call Gaban Retaining many Spanish words since The time that they were under Spanish government. Pusca to seek Is quite familiar here Out of ragazzo I have heard The Milanese semozzo The styler Which is originally a Castilian Word I believe and spelt by them With the C con sedilla M O C sedilla O They have likewise Latin Phrases oddly mingled among their Own. A gentleman said yesterday that he was Going to Casa Sororos To his sisters And the strange word minga Which one meets at every turn Is corrupted I believe from mica A crumb Piazz minga I have not a crumb of pleasure in it Etc. The uniformity of dress here Pleases the eye and their custom Of going veiled to church And always without a hat Which they consider as profanation Of the temple as they call it Delights me much As a mere decency in the individuals Of general respect For the place And of a resolution not to let External images intrude on devout Thoughts. The hanging, the churches And even public pillars set up in the streets Or squares for purposes of Adoration with black When any person of consequence dies Displeases me more. It is so Very dismal. A paltry piece of pride And expiring vanity And so dirty a custom Calling bugs and spiders And all manner of vermin about one's So in those black trappings It is terrible. But if they remind us Of our end and set us about Preparing for it The benefit is greater than the evil. The equipage on the course So here are very numerous In proportion to the size of the city And excessively showy The horses are long-tailed Heavy and for the most part Black with high Rising forehands by the singing of The backersart fully concealed by the Harness of red morocco leather Richly ornamented and white Reigns. To this magnificent smudges Added by large Leopard panther or tiger skins Beautifully Striped or spotted by nature's hand Held fast on the horses By heavy shining tassels of gold Coloured lace, etc. Wonderfully handsome While the driver, clothed in A bright scarlet dress adorned And trimmed with bare skin Makes a noble figure on the box At the season upon days of gala The carnival, however, exhibits A variety unspeakable. Boats and barges Paint of a thousand colours Drawn upon wheels And filled with masks and merry-makers Who throw sugar-plums at each other To the infinite delight of the town Whose populousness That show evinces to perfection For every window and balcony Is crowded to excess. The streets are full of the Moncan express of gazes And general mirth and gaiety prevail. When the flashing season Is over And you are no longer to be Dazzled with binary or stunned With noise. The nobility of Milan For gentry there are none Fairly slip a check case Over the hammock. As we do our best chairs In England clap a coarse Leather cover on the carriage top The coachman wearing a vast Brown greatcoat Which he spreads on each side Of him over the corners of his coach box And looks as somebody was saying Like a sitting hen The paving of our streets Here at Milan is worth mentioning Only because it is directly contrary To the London method of performing The same operation. They lay the large flagstones At this place in two rows For the coach wheels To roll smoothly over Leaving walkers To accommodate themselves And bear the sharp pebbles To their tread as they may In everything great and everything The diversity of government Must perpetually occur Where that is despotic Small care will be taken Of the common people Where that is popular little attention Will be paid to the great ones I never in my whole life Heard so much of birth and family As since I came to this town Where blood enjoys A thousand exclusive privileges Where cavalier and dharma Are words of the first Nay of the only importance Where wit and beauty Are considered as useless Without a long pedigree And virtue, talents Wealth and wisdom But thought on only as middles To hang upon the branch of a genealogical tree As we tied trinkets to a watch In England I went to church Twenty yards from our own door With a servant to wait on me And so There was a lady Particularly well dressed Very handsome Two footmen attending on her At a distance took my attention Peter I said to my own man as we came out Ki equa dharma Note who is that lady End note Nun Eddama She is no lady Replies the fellow I thought she might be somebody's Kept mistress and asked him Whose Vio me liberi Note God forbid End note returns Peter In a kinder accent For their heart came in And he would not injure her character Emolie dun rico banchiere Note she is a rich banker's wife End note You may see at it here That she is no lady if you look The servants carry No velvet stool for her to kneel upon And they have no coat armor In the lace to the liveries She a lady He repeated again with Infinite contempt I am told that the arch duke Is very desirous to close This breach of distinction And to draw merchants and traders With their wives up into higher notice Than they were wont to remain in I do not think he will By that means Consiliate the affection of any rank The prejudices in favour Of nobility are too strong To be shaken here much less Rooted out so The very servants Would rather starve In the house of a man of family Than eat after a person Of inferior quality Whom they consider as their equal And almost treat as such to his face Shall we then Be able to refuse Our particular veneration To those characters of high rank here Who add to the charm Of a cultivated mind To that situation which united Even with ignorance would Ensure them respect When scholarship is found Among the great in Italy It has the additional merit of having grown Up in their own bosoms Without encouragement from emulation Or in the least Interested motive His companions Do not think much the more of him For that kind of superiority I suppose Says a friend of his He must be fond of the study For qui penso D'una maniera qui penso D'un altra Permets on a start is always ignorantissimo Note One man is of one mind Another of another Sheer dunce for my own part End note These voluntary confessions Of many equality which were Possessed or not by English people Would certainly never be avowed Spring from that native sincerity I have been praising For though family connection Surprised so highly here No man seems ashamed That he has no family to boast All feigning Would indeed be useless and impracticable Yet it struck me with astonishment too To hear a well-bred clergyman Who visits at many gentile houses Say gravely to his friend No longer ago than yesterday That friend of mine too Imminent both for talents and fortune Yes, there is a grand invitation At such a place tonight But I don't go because I'm not a gentleman Perche non sono cavaliere And the master desired That I would let you know That it was for no other reason That you had not a card To my good friend For it is an invitation of numb But people of fashion, you see At all this nobody stares Nobody laughs And nobody's throat is cutting Consequence of their sincere declarations The women are not behind hand In openness of confidence And comical sincerity We have all heard much of Italian Cicci besen I had a mind to know How matters really stood And looked the nearest way to information By asking a mighty beautiful And apparently artless young creature Not noble, how that affair was managed For there is no harm done, I'm sure Said I I know, replied she No great harm to be sure Except we're some attentions From a man one cares little about For my own part Continued she, I detest the custom As I happen to love my husband Excessively And desire nobody's company in the world But his We are not people of fashion, though You know, nor at all rich So how should we Set fashions for our betters That would only say See how jealous he is If Mr. Such and such a one Sat much with me at home To the core so And I must go with some gentlemen, you know And the men are such Ungenerous creatures And have such ways with them I want money often And this cavaliere servente Pays the bills And so the connection draws Closer That's all And your husband, said I Oh boy, he likes To see me well dressed He is very good-natured and very charming I love him to my heart And your confessor, cried I Oh, why, he is used to it In the Milanese dialect A suefa The mind of an Italian with a man or woman Seldom fails for what I see To make up in extent What is wanted in cultivation And that they possess the art of Pleasing in an imminent degree A constancy with which they are Mutually beloved by each other Is the best proof Ladies of distinction Ring with them and they marry Besides fortune, as many clothes As will last them seven years For fashions do not change here As often as in London or Paris Yet is pin money allowed And an attention paid to the wife That no English woman can form An idea of In every family her duties For as I have observed Household management falls To the master's share Of course, when all the servants are men Almost, and those all pay By the week or day Children are very seldom seen By those who visit great houses If they do come down For five minutes after dinner The parents are talked of as Doting on them And nothing can equal The pious and tender return Of mothers in this country For even and apparently Moderate share of fondness Shown to them in a state of infancy I saw an old Marchioness The other day Who had, I believe, been Exquisitely beautiful Lying in bed in a spacious Apartment just like ours In the old palaces With the tester touching The top almost She had her three grown-up sons And a side of pleasing And showing her whatever could soothe Her amuse so that it charmed me And I was told and Observed indeed That when they quitted her presence A half kneeling bow And a kind of kiss of her still White hand was the ceremony Used I knew myself brought dither Only that she might be entertained With the sight of the foreigner And was equally struck at her Perseverance More so I should imagine Than she could be by mine When these dear men assisted In moving her pillows with Amulet of attention And rejoiced with each other apart That their mother looked so well Today Two or three servants out of livery Brought us refreshments, I remember But her maid attended In the antechamber and answered The bell at her bed's head The old style of grandeur Crimson damask if I recollect Right with family arms At the back And she lay on nine or eleven pillows Laced with ribbon And two large bows to each Very elegant and extensive In any country With all this to prove That the Italians have little Sensational cold He was no fire But a suffocating brazier Kept open into the maid's apartment A woman here in every Stage of life has really A degree of attention shown her That is surprising If conjugal disputes arise In a family so as to make them become What we call town talk The public voice is sure To run against the husband If separation ensues All possible countenance Is given to the wife While the gentleman is somewhat less Winningly received And all the stories of past Discuss are related to his prejudice Nor will the lady whom he wishes To serve look very kindly On a man who treats his own wife With unpoliteness Que cuore deve avare? Note, what a heart He must have End note, says she I shall take care Not to trust him sure National character Is a great matter I did not know There had been such a difference In the ways of thinking Merely from custom and climate As I see there is That one is red of it It was, however, entertaining Enough to hear a travel gentleman Ranging away three nights ago At our house in praise Of English cleanliness And telling his auditors All the men in London Of a noble put on a clean shirt every day And the women washed The street before his house door Every morning Que es que habito am I Exclaimed a lady of quality who was listening Ma naturalmente será Pe comando da príncipe Note What a land of slavery Says Donna Louisa I heard her But it is all done by command End note Their ideas of justice Are no less singular than of delicacy But those are more easily accounted for So is their amiable carriage Towards inferiors Calling their own in their friends' servants By tender names And speaking to all below themselves With a graciousness not often used By Englishmen or women even to their equals The pleasure to which the high people here Express when the low ones are diverted Is charming We think it vulgar to be merry When the mob is so But if rolling down a hill Like Greenwich was the custom here As it is with us All Milan would run to see the sport And rejoice in the Felicity of their fellow creatures When I express my admiration Of such condescending sweetness They reply E un momo come un altro E batizzato come noi And the like Note He's a man of the same nature as we He has been christened as well as ourselves End note They reply Yet do I not for this reason condemn the English As naturally haughty above Their continental neighbors Our government Has left so narrow a space Between the upper and under ranks In Great Britain While our charitable and truly Christian Religion is still so constantly Employed in raising the depressed By giving them the means of changing the Situation The defiled persons of condition Fail even for a moment to watch Their post Maintaining by dignity While their fathers have acquired by merit They are instantly and suddenly broken In upon by the well employed Talents of swiftly acquired riches Of men born on the other side The thin partition Whilst in Italy The gulf is totally Impassable And both alone can entitle Man or woman to the society Of gentlemen and Ladies This firmly fixed idea of subordination Which I once Heard of an issue say he believed Must exist in heaven from one angel To another Once immediately for a little conversation Which I am now going to relate Here were two men Taken up last week One for murdering his fellow servant in cold blood While the undefended creature had the lemonade Train his hand going in to serve company The other For breaking the new lamps Lately set up with intention to light This town in the manner of the streets at Paris I hope so They will hang the murderer I rather hope Light a very sensible lady who sat near me That they will hang the person Who wrote the lamps For Adagy The first committed his crime only out of Revenge poor fellow Because the other had got his mistress from him By treachery But this creature has had the impudence To break our fine new lamps Or for the sake of Spiting the Archduke The Archduke Meantime hangs nobody at all But sets his prisoners To work upon the roads, public buildings Etc. Where they labour in their chains And where strange to tell they often insult Passengers who refuse them arms When asked as they go by And strangers still They are not punished for it when they do Here is certainly much Despotic power in Italy But I fancy very little oppression Perhaps authority once acknowledged Does not delight itself always By the fatigue of exertion Is an old adage With which I perhaps may be the better acquainted As it is the motto to my own coat of arms And unless sovereignty is hungry For what I see He does not certainly devour The certainty of their irrevocable doom Softened by kind usage from their superiors Makes in the meantime An odd sort of humorous Drollery spring up among the common people Who are much happier here at Milan Than I expected to find them Every great house giving meat broth Etc. to poor dependents With liberal good nature enough So that mighty little wandering misery Is seen in the streets Unlike those of Genoa Who seem mocked with the word liberty But sorrow is sickness And the most pinching want Pine at the doors of marble palaces Whose owners are as unfeeling as their walls Our ordinary people here in Lombardia Are well clothed, fat, stout and merry And desirous to divert themselves And their protectors whom they love At their hearts There is however a degree of effrontery Among the women that amazes me And one of which I had no idea Till a friend showed me one evening From my own box at the opera Fifty or a hundred low shopkeepers Wives dispersed about the pit At the theatre, dressed in men's clothes Per disimpeño, as they call it, That they might be more at liberty For Soothe to clap and hiss And quarrel and docile, etc. I felt shocked One who comes from a free government Need not wonder so, said he From the country, sir, replied I Where everybody has hopes Or at least possibility of bettering His station and advancing Nearer to the limits of upper life None except the most abandoned of their species Will wholly lose sight of such Decorous conduct as alone can grace Them when they have reached their wish Whereas your people know their destiny Future as well as present And think no more of deserving A higher post than they think Of obtaining it End of chapter two, part two Chapter three of Glimpses of Italian Society in the eighteenth century By Hester Lynch Piozzi This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Mantua Verona and Padua Lodi The first evenings drive carried A snow farther than Lodi A place renowned throughout all Europe For its excellent cheese As our well-known ballad bears testimony Quote Let Lodi or Parmesan bring up the rear Unquote This town, however, bringing no other ideas Either new or old to our minds We went to the opera and heard A modicchetti sing After which they gave us a new Dramatic dance made upon the story Of Don John or the Libertine A tale which, with a true or false fact Or fable, has furnished every Christian Country in the world, I believe, With some subject of representation It makes me no sport, however The idea of an impenetent sinner Going to hell is too seriously terrifying To make amusement out of That mythology, which is now going good For a little else, be danced upon the stage Where Mr. Vestris may bounce and struggle In the character of Alcides On his funeral pyre with no very glaring Impropriety And such borgels serve beside To keep old classical stories in the heads Of our young people Who, if they must have tortures to blaze In their eyes, may divert themselves With Pluto catching up Ceri's daughter Into driving her way to Tartarus But let Don John alone I have at least half an ocean that The horrible history is half true If so, it is surely very gross To represent it by dancing Should such false foolish taste Per veil in England, but I hope it will not We might perhaps go happily through the whole Book of God's revenge against murder Or the annals of Newgate on the stage Mantra The theatres here are beautiful beyond all telling And it is a shame not to take the model Of the small one and build a place Of entertainment on the plan They cannot sure it be any plan more elegant We had a concert of admirable music At the house of our new acquaintance In the evening and were introduced By his means to many people of fashion The ladies were pretty and dressed With much taste, no caps at all But flowers in their heads And earrings of silver filigree Finally worked long, light and thin I never saw such before But it would be an exceeding pretty fashion They hung down quite low upon the neck and shoulders It had a pleasing effect Verona, April the 10th How beautiful the entrances of this charming city How grand the gate, how handsome the drive forward May all be read here in a printed book Called Verona El Estrada But my felicity in finding the amphitheatre So well preserved can only be found in my own heart Which began sensibly to dilate At seeing the old Roman Coliseum Kept so nicely and repaired so well A bull feast given here to divert the emperor As he passed through must have excited Many pleasing sensations For the inhabitants sat on seats Once occupied by the masters of the world And what is more worth wonder Sat at the feet of a transalpine Caesar For so the sovereign of Germany Is even now called by his Milanese subjects In common discourse And when one looks upon the arms of Austria A spread eagle And recollects that When the Roman Empire was divided The old eagle was split With one face looking towards the east The other towards the west And token of a shared possession It affects one And calls up classic imagery to the mind The collection of antiquities According to the Philharmonic Society Is very respectable They reminded me of the Arendall Marbles At Oxford, and I said so Oh, replied the man who showed these That collection was very valuable to be sure But the bad air and the smoke of coal Fires in England have ruined them long ago I suspected that my gentleman talked by rote And examining the book called The Verona illustrator found the remark there But this is Malafere And a very ridiculous prejudice Of Verona Medzimachi Note the people of Verona are half out of their wits And note Saudi Italians themselves of them And I see nothing seeming lego forward here But Improvissatore reciting stories and verses To entertain the populace Always flying kites Cut square Like a diamond on the cards And called stelle Men amusing themselves at a game called palmaio Something like our cricket Only that they throw the ball with the hollow stick Not with the hand But it requires no small corporal strength And I know not why our English people Have such a notion of Italian effeminacy Games of very strong exertion In use among them And I have not yet felt one hot day Since I left France They showed us an agreeable garden Here belonging to some man of fashion Whose name I know not It was cut in a rock Yet the grotto disappointed me They had not taken such advantages Of the situation as Nomelina would have done And I recollected the tasteful creations In my own country Of the noble and star-head The Veronese nobleman Shared however the spirit of his country If we let loose the genius of ours The emperor had visited his improvements it seems And on the spot where he kissed the children of the house Their father set up a stone to record the honour Our attendant-related attendee's story To me more interesting which happened in this garden Of an English gentleman who, having hired the house Et cetera one season, found his favourite Servant Dill there and liked to die The poor creature expressed his concern At the intolerant cruelty of that sect Which denies Christians of any other denomination But their own, a place in consecrated ground And lamented his distance from home With an anxious earnestness that hastened his end When the humanity of his master Sent him to the landlord who kindly gave permission That he might lie undisturbed under his turf As one places one's lapdog in England And there, as our lackey de Place observed He did no harm, though he was a heretic And the English gentleman wept over his grave Our acupages here are strangely inferior To those we left behind at Milan Oil is spurned in the conversation rooms, too And it smells very offensively They lament our, quote, suffocation In England and black smoke, unquote While what proceeds from these lamps Would ruin the finest furniture in the world Before five weeks were expired I saw no such use at Turin, Genomor, or Milan The horses here are not equal to those I've admired On the Corso at other great terms But it is pleasing to observe the contrast Between the high-bred, eerie, elegant English hunter And the majestic, docile, well-broken war horse Of Lombardy Shall we fancy there is Gothic and Grecian To be found even among the animals? Or is that not too fanciful? Before leaving the plains of Lombardy I will give my countrywomen one reason For detaining them so long there It cannot be an uninteresting reason to us When we reflect that our first headdresses Were made by Milaners That a court gown was early known in England By the name of a Mantua From Manto, the daughter of Tiresias Who founded the city so-called And that some of the best materials For making these mantuas Is still named from the town it is manufactured in A Padua soire Padua Padua la dota afforded me much pleasure From the politeness of the Countess Ferres Born a German at the house of Starnberg She thought proper to show me a thousand civillities In consequence of a kind letter Which we carried her from Count Bilsik The Austrian minister at Milan Called the literati of the town about us And gave me the pleasure of conversing With the Abbate Cesarotti who translated Osium And the professor Statico Whose attentions I will never to forget I was surprised at length To hear kind inquiries after English acquaintance Made in my native language by the botanical professor Who spoke much of Dr Johnson And with great regard He had it seems spent much time in our island About 30 years before The debt is stoned in the Hall of Justice Has many entertaining stories Are next to it The bankrupt is obliged to sit there In presence of his creditors and judges In a very disgraceful state And many accounts are told of the various effects Such distresses have had on the mind But suicide is a crime Rarely committed out of England And the Italians look with just horror On our people for being so easily incited To a sin which takes from him that commits At all power and possibility of repentance A Frenchman whom I sent for once at Bath To dress my hair Gave me an excellent tray of his own National character speaking upon that subject When he meant to satirise ours You have lived some years in England Do you like it? No, madame Not very well No, truly, ma'am Not much End note You have travelled much in Italy Do you like that better? Dear and a pleasure, madame I call you Monsieur les Italiens Oh God forbid now I can't endure those Italians End note What do they do to make you Hate them so? But these Italian secretaries Are killing each other replied the fellow And his English is making me happy To hear them I don't feel anything less Than the very taste of that kindness I would like to find myself in Paris To laugh a little No, but really The Italians have such a passion For murdering each other, ma'am And the English such an odd delight In killing themselves That I, who have acquired no taste For such agreeable amusements Grow so many patients to return to Paris And get a good laugh among my old acquaintance End note Besides the civility Shown as here by Mr Bernaldi And his agreeable lady, Signora Annetta We were recommended by letters From the Venetian resident at Milan To Abate Tueldo, professor of astronomy Who wished to do all in his power To oblige and entertain us His observatory is a good one But the learned, amiable scholar Who resides in the first floor of it Complained to us that he was Sickly, old and poor Three bad qualifications As he observed with the amusement of travellers Who commonly arrive hungry for novelty And thirsty for information His quadrant was very fine The planetarium, or orary Quite out of repair And his references, of course, were obliged To be made to a sort of map or chart Of the heavenly bodies A solar system at least with comets That hung up in his room as a substitute He had little reverence for the petrifactions Of Monte Volcker, I perceived Which he considered as mere lusus naturi He showed me poor Petrax too From his observatory Bid me look on Sir Isaac's Full-length picture in the room and said The world would see no more such men Of our masculine, however, no man Could speak with more esteem Or expressions of generous friendship His sitting chamber was a pleasant one And I should not have left it so soon But in compassion for his health Which our company was more likely To injure than assist He asked me if I did not find Padua la Doctor A very stinking, nasty term But added that literature and dirt Had long been intimately acquainted And that this city was commonly called Among the Italians Porchill di Padua Padua the pigsty I must not leave the terra firma As it is called Without mentioning once more Some of the animals it produces Among which the asses are so justly Renowned for their size and beauty That Gomi o Nazinu di Padua Is proverbial when speaking of strength Among the Italians How should it be otherwise indeed When every herb and every shrub Breeds fragrance And whether quantity as well as the quality Of their food naturally so increases Their milk That I should think some of them Might yield as much as an ordinary cow This town, as Abbott well do observed Is old and dirty And melancholy looking in itself But Terrence told us long ago And truly quote That it was not the walls But the company made every place Delightful unquote And these inhabitants though few in number So exceedingly cheerful, so charming Their language is so malefluous Their manners so soothing I can scarcely better leave them Without tears Verona was the first place I felt reluctance to quit But the Venetian state Certainly possesses uncommon And to me almost unaccountable Attractions Be that as it will Relieve these sweet Paduans tomorrow The coach is disposed of And we are to set out Upon our watery journey To their wonderfully situated metropolis Or as they call it prettily A beautiful dominant End of chapter 3