, those which vomit fire in particular, with half as much
application, inspired by half as much genius, as he has done.

We arrived late at our inn, an English one they say it is; and many of
the last miles were passed very pleasantly by my maid and myself, in
anticipating the comforts we should receive by finding ourselves among
our own country folks. In good time! and by once more eating, sleeping,
&c. _all in the English way_, as her phrase is. Accordingly, here are
small low beds again, soft and clean, and down pillows; here are currant
tarts, which the Italians scorn to touch, but which we are happy and
delighted to pay not ten but twenty times their value for, because a
currant tart is so much _in the English way_: and here are beans and
bacon in a climate where it is impossible that bacon should be either
wholesome or agreeable; and one eats infinitely worse than one did at
Milan, Venice, or Bologna: and infinitely dearer too; but that makes it
still more completely _in the English way_.

Mean time here we are however in Arno's Vale; the full moon shining over
Fiesole, which I see from my windows. Milton's verses every moment in
one's mouth, and Galileo's house twenty yards from one's door,

Whence her bright orb the Tuscan artist view'd,
At evening from the top of Fesole;
Or in Val d'Arno to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains on her spotty globe.

Our apartments here are better than we hoped for, situated most sweetly
on the banks of this classical stream; a noble terrace underneath our
window, broad as the south parade at Bath I think, and the fine Ponte
della Santa Trinita within sight. Many people have asserted that this is
the first among all bridges in the world; but architecture triumphs in
the art of building bridges, and, though this is a most exquisitely
beautiful fabric, I can scarcely venture to call it an unrivalled one:
it shall, if the fine statues at the corners can assist its power over
the fancy, and if cleanliness can compensate for stately magnificence,
or for the fire of original and unassisted genius, it shall obliterate
from my mind the Rialto at Venice, and the fine arch thrown over the
Conway at Llanwrst in our North Wales.

I wrote to a lady at Venice this morning though, to say, however I might
be charmed by the sweets of Arno's side, I could not forbear regretting
the Grand Canal.

Count Manucci, a nobleman of this city, formerly intimate with Mr.
Thrale in Lo