es, might chance to drop upon the head of a _Principettino_, or
little Prince, as he passed along.

I was observing that restraint was necessary to man; I have now learned
a notion that noise is necessary too. The clatter made here in the
Piazza del Duomo, where you sit in your carriage at a coffee-house door,
and chat with your friends according to Italian custom, while _one_
eats ice, and _another_ calls for lemonade, to while away the time after
dinner, the noise made then and there, I say, is beyond endurance.

Our Florentines have nothing on earth to do; yet a dozen fellows crying
_ciambelli_, little cakes, about the square, assisted by beggars, who
lie upon the church steps, and pray or rather promise to pray as loud as
their lungs will let them, for the _anime sante di purgatorio_[Footnote:
Holy souls in purgatory.]; ballad-singers meantime endeavouring to drown
these clamours in their own, and gentlemen's servants disputing at the
doors, whose master shall be first served; ripping up the pedigrees of
each to prove superior claims for a biscuit or macaroon; do make such an
intolerable clatter among them, that one cannot, for one's life, hear
one another speak: and I did say just now, that it were as good live at
Brest or Portsmouth when the rival fleets were fitting out, as here;
where real tranquillity subsists under a bustle merely imaginary. Our
Grand Duke lives with little state for aught I can observe here; but
where there is least pomp, there is commonly most power; for a man must
have _something pour se de dommages_[Footnote: To make himself amends.],
as the French express it; and this gentleman possessing the _solide_ has
no care for the _clinquant_, I trow. He tells his subjects when to go to
bed, and who to dance with, till the hour he chuses they should retire
to rest, with exactly that sort of old-fashioned paternal authority that
fathers used to exercise over their families in England before commerce
had run her levelling plough over all ranks, and annihilated even the
name of subordination. If he hear of any person living long in Florence
without being able to give a good account of his business there, the
Duke warns him to go away; and if he loiter after such warning given,
sends him out. Does any nobleman shine in pompous equipage or splendid
table; the Grand Duke enquires soon into his pretensions, and scruples
not to give personal advice, and add grave reproofs with regard to the
management of e