To hear the light cicala's ceaseless din,
That vibrates shrill; or the near-weeping brook
That feebly winds along,
And mourns his channel shrunk.

MERRY.

This animal has four wings, four eyes, and two membranes like parchment
under the hard scales he is covered with; and these, it is said, create
the uncommon noise he makes, by blowing them somewhat like bellows, to
sharpen the sound; which, whatever it proceeds from, is louder than can
be guessed at by those who have not heard it in Tuscany. He is of the
locust kind, an inch and a half long, and wonderfully light in
proportion; though no small feeder, I should imagine, by the total
destruction his noisy tribe make amongst the leaves, which are now
wholly stript by them of all their verdure, the fibres only being left;
and I observed yesterday evening, as we returned from airing, another
strange deprivation practised on the mulberry leaves round the city,
which being all forcibly torn away for the use of the silk-worms, make
an odd fort of artificial winter near the town walls; and remind one of
the wretched geese in Lincolnshire, plucked once a year for their
feathers by their truly unfeeling proprietors. I am told indeed, that
both revegetate, though I trust neither tree nor bird can fail to
experience fatal effects one day or other in consequence of so unnatural
an operation. Here is some ivy of uncommon growth, but I have seen
larger both at Beaumaris castle in North Wales, and at the abbey of
Glastonbury in Somersetshire: but the great pines in the Caseine woods
have, I suppose, no rival nearer than the Castagno a Cento Cavalli,
mentioned by Mr. Brydone. They afford little shade or shelter from heat
however, as their umbrella-like covering is strangely small in
proportion to their height and size; some of them being ten, and some
twelve feet in diameter. These venerable, these glorious productions of
nature are all now marked for destruction however; all going to be put
in wicker baskets, and feed the Grand Duke's fires. I saw a fellow
hewing one down to-day, and the rest are all to follow;--the feeble
Florentines had much ado to master it;

Seemed the harmful hatchet to fear,
And to wound holy Eld would forbear,

as Spenser says: I did half hope they could not get it down; but the
loyal Tuscans (evermore awed by the name _principe_) told us it was
right to get rid of them, as one of the cones, of which they bore vast
quantiti