ROM BOOKS--A
SONG OF BONDELMONTI'S, WITH A LATIN VERSION BY GRAY, AND AN ENGLISH ONE
BY THE WRITER._

TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ.

FLORENCE, _Oct._ 2, 1740, N.S.

Dear West,--T'other night as we (you know who _we_ are) were walking on
the charming bridge, just before going to a wedding assembly, we said,
"Lord, I wish, just as we are got into the room, they would call us out,
and say, West is arrived! We would make him dress instantly, and carry
him back to the entertainment. How he would stare and wonder at a
thousand things, that no longer strike us as odd!" Would not you? One
agreed that you should have come directly by sea from Dover, and be set
down at Leghorn, without setting foot in any other foreign town, and so
land at _Us_, in all your first full amaze; for you are to know, that
astonishment rubs off violently; we did not cry out Lord! half so much
at Rome as at Calais, which to this hour I look upon as one of the most
surprising cities in the universe. My dear child, what if you were to
take this little sea-jaunt? One would recommend Sir John Norris's convoy
to you, but one should be laughed at now for supposing that he is ever
to sail beyond Torbay.[1] The Italians take Torbay for an English town
in the hands of the Spaniards, after the fashion of Gibraltar, and
imagine 'tis a wonderful strong place, by our fleet's having retired
from before it so often, and so often returned.

[Footnote 1: Sir John Norris was one of the most gallant and skilful
seamen of his time; but an expedition in which he had had the command
had lately proved fruitless. He had been instructed to cruise about the
Bay of Biscay, in the hope of intercepting some of the Spanish
treasure-ships; but the weather had been so uninterruptedly stormy that
he had been compelled to return to port without having even seen an
enemy. The following lines were addressed to him upon this occasion:

Homeward, oh! bend thy course; the seas are rough;
To the Land's End who sails, has sailed enough.]

We went to this wedding that I told you of; 'twas a charming feast: a
large palace finely illuminated; there were all the beauties, all the
jewels, and all the sugar-plums of Florence. Servants loaded with great
chargers full of comfits heap the tables with them, the women fall on
with both hands, and stuff their pockets and every creek and corner
about them. You would be as much amazed at us as at anything you saw:
instead of being deep in the liberal