views, with seats
of turf. They were easily made, here being a large quantity of
underwood, and a great number of wild vines, which twist to the top of
the highest trees, and from which they make a very good sort of wine
they call _brusco_. I am now writing to you in one of these arbours,
which is so thickly shaded, the sun is not troublesome, even at noon.
Another is on the side of the river, where I have made a camp kitchen,
that I may take the fish, dress, and eat it immediately, and at the same
time see the barks, which ascend or descend every day to or from Mantua,
Guastalla, or Pont de Vie, all considerable towns. This little wood is
carpeted, in their succeeding seasons, with violets and strawberries,
inhabited by a nation of nightingales, and filled with game of all
kinds, excepting deer and wild boar, the first being unknown here, and
not being large enough for the other.

"My garden was a plain vineyard when it came into my hands not two years
ago, and it is, with a small expense, turned into a garden that (apart
from the advantage of the climate) I like better than that of
Kensington. The Italian vineyards are not planted like those in France,
but in clumps, fastened to trees planted in equal ranks (commonly
fruit-trees), and continued in festoons from one to another, which I
have turned into covered galleries of shade, that I can walk in the heat
without being incommoded by it. I have made a dining-room of verdure,
capable of holding a table of twenty covers; the whole ground is three
hundred and seventeen feet in length, and two hundred in breadth. You
see it is far from large; but so prettily disposed (though I say it),
that I never saw a more agreeable rustic garden, abounding with all sort
of fruit, and produces a variety of wines. I would send you a piece [_sic_]
if I did not fear the customs would make you pay too dear for it."

Lady Mary was now in her sixtieth year, and asked for nothing better
than peace and comfort. Her manner of life she described as being as
regular as that of any monastery. She rose at six, and after an early
breakfast worked in the garden. Then she visited the dairy and inspected
her chickens--at one time she had two hundred of them--and her turkeys,
geese, ducks, and peacocks, her bees and her silkworms. At eleven she
read for an hour, and after an early dinner would take a siesta. Then
she played picquet or whist with some friendly priests. In the evening
she walked in th