ork which chiefly brought me hither; the
Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson's Life. It is from this port they take their
flight for England, while we retire for refreshment to the

BAGNI DI PISA.

But not only the waters here are admirable, every look from every window
gives images unentertained before; sublimity happily wedded with
elegance, and majestick greatness enlivened, yet softened by taste.

The haughty mountain St. Juliano lifting its brown head over our house
on one side, the extensive plain stretched out before us on the other; a
gravel walk neatly planted by the side of a peaceful river, which winds
through a valley richly cultivated with olive yards and vines; and
sprinkled, though rarely, with dwellings, either magnificent or
pleasing: this lovely prospect, bounded only by the sea, makes a variety
incessant as the changes of the sky; exhibiting early tranquillity, and
evening splendour by turns.

It was perhaps particularly delightful to me, to obtain once more a
cottage in the country, after running so from one great city to another;
and for the first week I did nothing but rejoice in a solitude so new,
so salutiferous, so total. I therefore begged my husband not to hurry us
to Rome, but take the house we lived in for a longer term, as I would
now play the English housewife in Italy I said; and accordingly began
calling the chickens and ducks under my window, tasted the new wine as
it ran purple from the cask, caressed the meek oxen that drew it to our
door; and felt sensations so unaffectedly pastoral, that nothing in
romance ever exceeded my felicity.

The cold bath here is the most delicate imaginable; of a moderate degree
of coldness though, not three degrees below Matlock surely; but
omitting, simply enough, to carry a thermometer, one can measure the
heat of nothing. Our hot water here seems about the temperature of the
Queen's bath in Somersetshire; it is purgative, not corroborant, they
tell me; and its taste resembles Cheltenham water exactly.

These springs are much frequented by the court I find, and here are
very tolerable accommodations; but it is not the season now, and our
solitude is perfect in a place which beggars all description, where the
mountains are mountains of marble, and the bushes on them bushes of
myrtle; large as our hawthorns, and white with blossoms, as _they_ are
at the same time of year in Devonshire; where the waters are salubrious,
the herbage odoriferous, every trodd