the right place as regards this matter the
following anecdote will show.

When Mr. Hamilton became British minister at Florence, it was
announced that his intention was, for the avoiding of all trouble
and jealousy on the subject, to adhere strictly to the proper and
recognised rule. He would present everybody and anybody who had been
presented at home, and nobody who had not been so presented. And he
commenced his administration on these lines, and the Grand Duke's
receptions at the Pitti became notably weeded. But this had not gone,
on for more than two or three weeks before it was whispered in the
minister's ear that the Grand Duke would be pleased if he were less
strict in the matter of his presentations. "Oh!" said Hamilton,
"that's what he wants! _A la bonne heure!_ He shall have them all,
rag, tag, and bobtail." And so we returned to the _Saturnia regna_ of
"the good old times," and the Duke was credibly reported to have said
that he "kept the worst drawing-room in Europe." But, of course, His
Highness was thinking of the pockets of his liege Florentine letters
of apartments and tradesmen, and was anxious only to make his city a
favourite place of resort for the gold-bringing foreigners from that
distant and barbarous western isle. The Pope, you see, had the pull
in the matter of gorgeous Church ceremonies, but he couldn't have the
fertilising barbarians dancing in the Vatican once a week!

One more anecdote I must find room for, because it is curiously
illustrative in several ways of those _tempi passati, che non tornano
piu_. Florence was full of refugees from the political rigours of the
papal government, who had for some time past found there an unmolested
refuge. But the aspect of the times was becoming more and more
alarming to Austria, and the _Duchini_, as we called the Sovereigns of
Modena and Parma; and pressure was put on the Duke by the pontifical
government insisting on the demand that these refugees should be given
up by Tuscany. Easy-going Tuscany, not yet in anywise alarmed for
herself, fought off the demand for a while, but was at last driven to
notify her intention of acceding to it. It was in these circumstances
that Massino d'Azeglio came to me one morning, in the garden of our
house in the Via del Giglio--the same in which the poet Milton lodged
when he was in Florence--to which we had by that time moved, and told
me that he wanted me to do something for him. Of course I professed
all readi