few months after marriage against this mode, and there are many examples where the Cavaliere, and not the husband, is the object; where the Cavaliere is taken immediately into fervice, and for whofe fake the marriage is a pretext and screen. So many opportunities muft, therefore, render this republic a fecond Cyprus, where all are votaries to Venus, unless it please Heaven to pour down more grace amongst them, than falls to the fhare of other nations in this degenerate age.'

As for the degeneracy of the age, we are of opinion that not only the Venetians, but most other nations, fo far from having degenerated in point of morals, (take them for all in all) are much less vicious than were their forefathers: and with regard to the Venetian ladies, whatever may be the general opinion of their licentiousness, it is more than probable that they excell those of most other countries (we speak of ladies of fashion) in conftancy not indeed to their political husbands, which are impofed upon them by the ftate, but to their natural husband, the man of their choice.

The following picture of the present state of the bar at Venice will not, we prefume, be unentertaining:

I fhall not, fays our Author, enter into the particulars of the extraordinary forms of their narrators, their interrupters, &c. a noify uncivilized manner of pleading; but shall only defcribe, if I am able, the agitation and fury of the pleaders, more like that of a demoniac, than of a man endeavouring, by found reason, to convince the judges and the audience of the juftice of his client's caufe. Every advocate mounts into a small pulpit, a little elevated above the audience, where he opens his harangue with fome gentleness, but does not long contain himfelf within thofe limits; his voice foon cracks, and, what is very remarkable, the beginning of moft fentences (whilft he is under any agitation, or feeming enthufiafm, in pleading) is at a pitch above his natural voice, fo as to occafion a wonderful difcord:' [The Author will excufe us if we interrupt him here, for a moment, with a short animadverfion on the impropriety of the term difcord, in this place. No fimple found can ever be a difcord, unless confidered relative to another tone, or tones, founded at the fame inftant.] He thus proceeds: then, if he means to be very emphatical, he ftrikes the pulpit with his hands five or fix times together, as quick as thought, ftamping at the fame time, fo as to make the great room refound with this species of oratory; at length, in the fury of his argument, he defcends from his pulpit, runs about pleading on the floor, returns in a violent paffion back again to the pulpit, thwacks it with his hands more than at first, and continues in this rage, running up and down the pulpit feveral times, till he has finished his harangue. They feem to be in a continual danger of dropping

Z3

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their wigs from their heads, and I am told it sometimes happens The audience fmile now and then at this extraordinary beha viour; but were a counsellor to plead in this manner at West minster, his friends would certainly fend for a bedlam doctor.'

The common people flatter themselves they are the freest state in Europe, and the nafty fellows efteem it a proof they are fo, that they can let down their breeches wherever and before whomfoever they please; accordingly all St. Mark's Place, and many parts of that fumptuous marble building, the Doge's palace, are dedicated to Cloacina, and you may fee the votaries at their devotions every hour of the day, as much while the nobles are going in and coming out, as at any other time.'

ROME, Oct. 1765.

We arrived at this place after a journey of feven days, with accommodations uncomfortable enough. Give what fcope you pleafe to your fancy, you will never imagine half the difagreeablenefs that Italian beds, Italian cooks, Italian poft horfes, Italian poftilions, and Italian naftinefs affer to an Englishman, in an autumnal journey; much more to an Englishwoman. At Turin, Milan, Venice, Rome, and perhaps two or three other towns, you meet with good accommodations; but no words can express the wretchedness of the other inns. No other beds than one of ftraw, with a matrass of straw, and next to that a dirty sheet, fprinkled with water, and confequently damp; for a covering you have another sheet, as coarfe as the first, and as coarfe as one of our kitchen jack-towels, with a dirty coverlet. The bedfted confifts of four wooden forms or benches: an Englifh peer and peerefs must lie in this manner, unless they carry an upholsterer's hop with them, which is very troublesome. There are, by the bye, no fuch things as curtains, and hardly, from Venice to Rome, that cleanly and most useful invention, a privy: fo that what should be collected and buried in oblivion, is for ever under your nofe and eyes. Take along with you, that in all these inns the walls are bare, and the floor has never once been washed fince it was firft laid. One of the most indelicate customs here, is, that men, and not women, make the la¬ dies beds, and would do every office of a maid-servant, if fuffered. To fum up in a word, the total of Italian naftiness, your chamber which you would wish to be the sweetest, is by far the most offensive room in the house, for reasons I shall not explain. I must tell you, that, except in two or three places, they never fcour their pewter, and, unless you were to see it, you will not conceive how dirty and naufeous it grows in thirty or forty years. Their knives are of the fame colour as their pewter, and their table-cloths and napkins fuch as you fee on joint-stools in Bartholomew fair, where the mob eat their faufages.'

• But

But what is a greater evil to travellers than any of the above recited, though not peculiar to the Loretto road, are the infinite. number of gnats, bugs, fleas, and lice, which infeft us by night and by day.

How extraordinary foever the above account may appear, to those who have formed their idea of this quondam centre of elegance and affluence, from ancient authors, or from the defcriptions of fome modern travellers; nevertheless, it is all literally true. The lower class of the modern Italians are inconceivably nafty; and the accommodations for ftrangers, except, as our Author obferves, in fome of their large towns, are beyond imagination wretched. But to an Englishman, the pleasure of treading in the footsteps of Mr. Additon, upon claffic ground, is fufficient to counterpoife every inconveniency.

The Farnefe Hercules, fays our Author, is in the highest reputation, as an exquifite performance, and would, indeed, have been a fine piece of fculpture, had there been fuch an original in nature; but, as I happen to know from my peculiar tudies, that the mufcles of a man's body, however much inflated, would not affume the fhape they do here, I cannot be pleafed, as fome men are, with the Farnefe Hercules."

This piece of criticism may appear, at first fight, to be well founded; and Mr. Sharp, from his fkill in anatomy, may naturally be fuppofed a competent judge of the propriety of expreffion in a mufcular figure: but that the muscles of a man's body never appear fo much inflated, lofes all its weight as an objection, when we recollect the fupernatural charaéter and fabulous exploits of the perfon reprefented. If the artist had not exceeded human nature, the ftatue would have been that of a porter, and not of Hercules.

NAPLES, Nov. 1765.

The road from Rome to this place is bad enough, the inns are still worse; nay worse than thofe on the Loretto road; for, in the town of Loretto there was good accommodation; but all the way to Naples we never once crept within the fheets, not daring to encounter the vermin and naftiness of those beds. I attempted to please myself with the conceit of travelling the fame road that Horace did in his journey to Brundufium; but my fenfations were too ftrong for my fancy. The fwampy foil and marshes on the right-hand, with a ftring of barren mountains on the left, for fcores of miles together, may amufe, but cannot delight a traveller. Did we not know that ancient Italy was in-. finitely more populous than it now is; did we not know that populoufnefs renders a country rich and chearful, I'fhould have Jufpected thofe maters of the univerfe had, in their haughtiness, and, from, a contempt of all other nations, called theirs the gar

24

den

den of the world: for beautiful and fertile as fome parts of it are, the amazing quantity of barren mountains, extending almoft from one extremity to the other, fhould feem to deprive it of that character; and, however bold and uncommon the affertion may appear, I think England a better refemblance of a garden than Italy; and fhould not hesitate to oppofe our verdure and inclofures, to their myrtle and orange-trees, which laft, by the bye, are not to be feen in the winter, except in the southern parts of Italy. Whilft I was in England, I never heard the words northern climate pronounced, but they conveyed to me an idea of barrennefs and imperfection. I had always conceived the vegetables and garden fruits, attained a flavour and favourinefs in the more fouthern climes, unknown to the latitude 52; but to my great furprize, I do not find that any of their herbage is equal in tafte and fweetnefs to that which grows in our gardens; and, what is ftill more furprifing, few of their fruits excell ours; I believe none except their water-melons, their grapes and their figs.'

Many people in England imagine the majority of cicefbeos to be an innocent kind of dangling fribble; but they are utterly mistaken in the character; nor do I find that it is understood here that the ladies live in greater purity with their cicefbeos than with their husbands; and generally fpeaking, with much lefs: If only one half of the ladies practifed this custom, the other half would defpife them; but, in fact, very few have any pretence to upbraid the reft with bad conduct, either from having no cicefbeo, or living innocently with him; if there be any of the latter fort, their reward must be in heaven, or, virtue muft be its own reward; as nobody gives them the least credit here for their continence, or fuppofes it practicable, nay, perhaps they may laugh at it as ridiculous;-fo pardonable and fo polite do they esteem this fpecies of criminality; and, to fay the truth, I myself have feen princeffes, ducheffes, and their cicesbeos, vifiting with the fame unconcernednefs as an honeft citizen and his wife do, nor, after a little habit and ufe, do they afford me more matter of speculation.

To give you an idea in one word, how much the mode of infeparableness is cftablished, fuffice it to fay, that if you invite five ladies to dinner, you of courfe lay ten plates, as each, for a certainty, brings her cicefbeo with her. You are not to imagine, that when I fpeak of an invitation of ladies, that a fingle woman is ever thought of; that charm in fociety, that innocence, and fprightlinefs attendant upon youth, and the ignorance of a deceitful world, is utterly unknown in Italy, nor are there more than two unmarried ladies in this metropolis who yifit; all the others are locked up in monafteries.

Children

1

Children here have very little tendency to fupport the friendship and harmony of the married state. With us, the joint intereft of both father and mother in their little ones, with perhaps the blended features, they each difcover in their progeny, does not contribute in a fmall degree, to heal any accidental breaches, or at least, to make them live on good terms for fake of their pofterity. In Italy a certain knowledge of every wife's attachment to a lover, extinguishes all focial affection, and all fondness for the offspring; and it is only the eldeft bein, who the husband is fure belongs to him; and for that fecurity, it is generally requifite the birth fhould take place the first year, as the women feldom hold out longer without a cicefbeo; indeed how fhould they? for a husband will not wait on his wife to a public place, and it is not the fashion for women to go, as in England, without men. I have been told by a grave Neapolitan old gentleman, the fault is entirely on the fide of the hufbands, who are fickle from the nature of the climate, and cannot continue conftant to their wives many months, fo that the poor women are driven into this measure; but whether the practice arife from levity, or compulfion, the confequence is dreadful to fociety, if there be any real delight, any charms in virtue. or mutual love.'

Has not our Author, in this place, drawn a falfe conclufion? Tho' there are many real charms in virtue and mutual love, it does not therefore follow that the want of a relish for those charms muft neceffarily be attended with dreadful confequences. to a fociety. A Dutchman might draw the fame conclufion from the want of a tafte for a pipe and tobacco. What we term domeftic happiness, would be no happiness at all to an Italian; and nothing would be attended with more dreadful confequences to their fociety, than to oblige them to be happy in our way. Be it as it may, the Italians undoubtedly ftand exculpated; for, if, as he informs us, the women are compelled to act as they do by the fickleness of the men, and the men are fickle from the nature of the climate, who is to blame? In fhort, the virtues and vices both of individuals and communities are certainly, in no fmall degree, conftitutional; and conftitutions are greatly influenced by climate. But the truth of the matter is, that a propenfity to variety is peculiar to no climate, but common to all, and its caufe must therefore be fought for in human nature: a propenfity, which we may be certain is too generally indulged, not in proportion to the wifdom of laws, or purity of religion; but in proportion to the number of individuals collected together, the frequency of intercourfe, and the confequent opportu nities of indulgence.

• The drama is fo little cultivated in Italy, that I believe they feldom or never act a tragedy, at least I have never yet heard of

fuch