ributed to soften my heart, though not to lower my
spirits. For when a Florentine asked me, how I came to cry so? I
answered, in the words of their divine Mestastasio:

"Che questo pianto mio
Tutto non e dolor;
E meraviglia, e amore,
E riverenza, e speme,
Son mille affetti assieme
Tutti raccolti al cor."

'Tis not grief alone, or fear,
Swells the heart, or prompts the tear;
Reverence, wonder, hope, and joy,
Thousand thoughts my soul employ,
Struggling images, which less
Than falling tears can ne'er express.

Giannetti, who pronounced the panegyric, is the justly-celebrated
improvisatore so famous for making Latin verses _impromptu_, as others
do Italian ones: the speech has been translated into English by Mr.
Merry, with whom I had the honour here first to make acquaintance,
having met him at Mr. Greatheed's, who is our fellow-lodger, and with
whom and his amiable family the time passes in reciprocations of
confidential friendship and mutual esteem.

Lord and Lady Cowper too contribute to make the society at this place
more pleasing than can be imagined; while English hospitality softens
down the stateliness of Tuscan manners.

Sir Horace Mann is sick and old; but there are conversations at his
house of a Saturday evening, and sometimes a dinner, to which we have
been almost always asked.

The fruits in this place begin to astonish me; such cherries did I never
yet see, or even hear tell of, as when I caught the Laquais de Place
weighing two of them in a scale to see if they came to an ounce. These
are, in the London street phrase, _cherries like plums_, in size at
least, but in flavour they far exceed them, being exactly of the kind
that we call bleeding-hearts, hard to the bite, and parting easily from
the stone, which is proportionately small. Figs too are here in such
perfection, that it is not easy for an English gardener to guess at
their excellence; for it is not by superior size, but taste and colour,
that _they_ are distinguished; small, and green on the outside, a bright
full crimson within, and we eat them with raw ham, and truly delicious
is the dainty. By raw ham, I mean ham cured, not boiled or roasted. It
is no wonder though that fruits should mature in such a sun as this is;
which, to give a just notion of its penetrating fire, I will take leave
to tell my countrywomen is so violent, that I use no other method of
heating the pinching-irons to cu