cypressi_ came of course into
one's head: and this noble plant, rich in foliage, and bright, not dusky
in colour, looked from its manner of growing like a vast evergreen
poplar.

Our equipages here are strangely inferior to those we left behind at
Milan. Oil is burned in the conversation rooms too, and smells very
offensively--but they _lament our suffocation in England, and black
smoke_, while what proceeds from these lamps would ruin the finest
furniture in the world before five weeks were expired; I saw no such
used at Turin, Genoa, or Milan.

The horses here are not equal to those I have admired on the Corso at
other great towns; but it is pleasing to observe the contrast between
the high bred, airy, elegant English hunter, and the majestic, docile,
and well-broken war horse of Lombardy. Shall we fancy there is Gothic
and Grecian to be found even among the animals? or is not that _too_
fanciful?

That every thing useful, and every thing ornamental, first revived in
Italy, is well known; but I was never aware till now, though we talk of
Italian book-keeping, that the little cant words employed in
compting-houses, took their original from the Lombard language, unless
perhaps that of Ditto, which every moment recurs, meaning Detto or
Sudetto, as that which was already said before: but this place has
afforded me an opportunity of discovering what the people meant, who
called a large portion of ground in Southwark some years ago a _plant_,
above all things. The ground was destined to the purposes of extensive
commerce, but the appellation of a _plant_ gave me much disturbance,
from my inability to fathom the meaning of it. I have here found out,
that the Lombards call many things a _plant_; and say of their cities,
palaces, &c. in familiar discourse--_che la pianta e buona, la pianta e
cattiva_[Footnote: The _plant_ is a good or a bad one], &c.

Thus do words which carry a forcible expression in one language, appear
ridiculous enough in another, till the true derivation is known. Another
reflection too occurs as curious; that after the overthrow of all
business, all knowledge, and all pleasure resulting from either, by the
Goths, Italy should be the first to cherish and revive those
money-getting occupations, which now thrive better in more Northern
climates: but the chymists say justly, that fermentation acts with a
sort of creative power, and that while the mass of matter is fermenting,
no certain judgment can be