their dependants live in Tuscany; but can any pride be more rational or
generous, or any desire more patriotick? Oh may they never look with
less delight on the happiness of their inferiors! and then they will not
murmur at their prince, whose protection of _this_ rank among his
subjects is eminently tender and attentive.

Returning home from our splendid dinner and agreeable day passed at
Conte Mannucci's country-seat, while our noble friends amused me with
various chat, I thought some unaccountable sparks of fire seemed to
strike up and down the hedges as if in perpetual motion, but checked
the fancy concluding it a trick of the imagination only; till the
evening, which shuts in strangely quick here in Tuscany, grew dark, and
exhibited an appearance wholly new to me; whose surprise that no flame
followed these wandering fires was not small, when I recollected the
state of desiccation that nature suffered, and had done for some months.
My dislike of interrupting an agreeable conversation kept me long from
enquiring into the cause of this appearance, which however I doubted not
was electrick, till they told me it was the _lucciola_, or fire-fly; of
which a very good account is given in twenty books, but I had forgotten
them all. As the Florence Miscellany has never been published, I will
copy out what is said of it _there_, because the Abate Fontana was
consulted when that description was given.

"This insect then differs from every other of the luminous tribe,
because its light is by no means continual, but emitted by flashes,
suddenly striking out as it flies; when crushed it leaves a lustre on
the spot for a considerable time, from whence one may conclude its
nature is phosphorick."

Oh vagrant insect, type of our short life,
'Tis thus we shine, and vanish from the view;
For the cold season comes,
And all our lustre's o'er.

MERRY's Ode to Summer.

It is said I think, that no animal affords an acid except ants, which
are therefore most quickly destroyed by lime, pot-ash, &c. or any strong
alkali of course; yet acid must the lucciola be proved, or she can never
be phosphorick surely; as upon its analysis that strangest of all
compositions appears to be a union of violent acid with inflammable
matter, whence it may be termed an animal sulphur, and is actually found
to burn successfully under a common glass-bell; and to afford flowers
too, which, by attracting the humidity of the air, become a