pence, by obliging them to wear constant
mourning: a very rational and well-devised rule in a town so small,
where every body is known to every body; and where, when this silly
excitement to envy is wisely removed, I know not what should hinder the
inhabitants from living like those one reads of in the Golden Age;
which, above all others, this climate most resembles, where pleasure
contributes to sooth life, commerce to quicken it, and faith extends its
prospects to eternity. Such is, or such at least appears to me this
lovely territory of Lucca: where cheap living, free government, and
genteel society, may be enjoyed with a tranquillity unknown to larger
states: where there are delicious and salutary baths a few miles out of
town, for the nobility to make _villeggiatura_ at; and where, if those
nobility were at all disposed to cultivate and communicate learning,
every opportunity for study is afforded.

Some drawbacks will however always be found from human felicity. I once
mentioned this place with warm expectations of delight, to a Milanese
lady of extensive knowledge, and every elegant accomplishment worthy her
high birth, _the Contessa Melzi Resla_. "Why yes," said she, "if you
would find out the place where common sense stagnates, and every topic
of conversation dwindles and perishes away by too frequent or too
unskilful touching and handling, you must go to Lucca. My ill-health
sent me to their beautiful baths one summer; where all the faculties of
my body were restored, thank God, but those of my soul were stupified to
such a degree, that at last I was fit to keep no other company but _Dame
Lucchesi_ I think; and _our_ talk was soon ended, heaven knows, for when
they had once asked me of an evening, what I had for dinner? and told me
how many pair of stockings their neighbours sent to the wash, we had
done."

This was a young, a charming, a lively lady of quality; full of
curiosity to know the world, and of spirits to bustle through it; but
had she been battered through the various societies of London and Paris
for eighteen or twenty years together, she would have loved Lucca
better, and despised it less. "We must not look for whales in the Euxine
Sea," says an old writer; and we must not look for great men or great
things in little nations to be sure, but let us respect the innocence of
childhood, and regard with tenderness the territory of Lucca: where no
man has been murdered during the life or memory of any