so abusively about her, he concerned himself with a
new edition of the _Court Poems_, though with what right has never
transpired. "I have lately had Lady Mary Wortley's Ecloques published;
but they don't please, though so excessively good," he wrote to Sir
Horace Mann, November 24, 1747. "I say so confidently, for Mr. Chute
agrees with me: he says, for the _Epistle from Arthur Grey_, scarce any
woman could have written it, and no man; for a man who had had
experience enough to paint such sentiments so well, would not have had
warmth enough left. Do you know anything of Lady Mary? Her adventurous
son is come in Parliament, but has not opened."

From Florence, Lady Mary repaired to Rome. There, she did not see the
Chevalier de St. George, but she did see his two sons, Charles Edward,
the Young Pretender, and Henry, Cardinal York. "The eldest seems
thoughtless enough, and is really not unlike Mr. Lyttelton in his shape
and air," she wrote to Montagu. "The youngest is very well made, dances
finely, and has an ingenuous countenance; he is but fourteen years of
age. The family live very splendidly, yet pay everybody, and (wherever
they get it) are certainly in no want of money."

Lady Mary seems to have had no prepared itinerary, but to have wandered
as the spirit moved her--Naples, Leghorn, Turin, Genoa. The cheapness of
Italy appealed to her frugal mind.

"The manners of Italy are so much altered since we were here last, the
alteration is scarce credible. They say it has been by the last war. The
French, being masters, introduced all their customs, which were eagerly
embraced by the ladies, and I believe will never be laid aside; yet the
different governments make different manners in every state. You know,
though the republic is not rich, here are many private families vastly
so, and live at a great superfluous expense: all the people of the first
quality keep coaches as fine as the Speaker's, and some of them two or
three, though the streets are too narrow to use them in the town; but
they take the air in them, and their chairs carry them to the gates. The
liveries are all plain: gold or silver being forbidden to be worn within
the walls, the habits are all obliged to be black, but they wear
exceeding fine lace and linen; and in their country-houses, which are
generally in the faubuurg, they dress very rich, and have extreme fine
jewels. Here is nothing cheap but houses. A palace fit for a prince may
be hired for fift