a nearly five months, passed one day in Civita
Vecchia, only calculating how long it would take him to get out of it,
seen from a steamboat "villainous towns" on the shores from Genoa to
Naples, the last month which he spent in this last city, where his turn
through Italy closes, caused him to change a little the language he used
before: "It is not the partiality one naturally feels for his country
women, that governs me," says Mr. Headley in his twenty first letter;
"when I say, that the beautiful women with us stand to them in the
proportion of five to one." And at the close of his pamphlet he added: "A
beautiful eye, and eyebrow are more frequently met here than at home. The
brow is peculiarly beautiful--not merely from its regularity, but singular
flexibility. It will laugh of itself, and the slight arch always heralds,
and utters beforehand the piquant thing the tongue is about to utter; and
then she laughs so sweetly!"

That Mr. Headly did tread on the toe of the italian as well as of the
american ladies, without intending to hurt them, or thinking that his
heavy boots had prevented them from dancing; with the following lines,
taken from his twenty-second, and last letter, I want to prove that, if he
did hurt them, he had not done it maliciously. Yes; in spite of his great
faults, which I found in his letters on Italy, and the italians, I am
inclined to think him a kind, sincere, and ingenuous gentleman. "I said in
my last letter," says Mr. Headly, "I would speak of the manners of the
italian women, which was the cause of their being so universally admired
by foreigners. This alone makes an immense difference between an italian,
and an american city. Broadway, with all its array of beauty, never
inclines one to be lively and merry. The ladies (the men are worse of
course) seem to have come out for any other purpose, than to enjoy
themselves. Their whole demeanor is like one sitting for his portrait.
Every thing is just as it should be, to be looked at. Every lady wears a
serious face, and the whole throng, is like a stiff country party. The
ladies here, on the contrary, go out to be merry, and it is one perpetual
chatter, and laugh on the public promenade. The movements are all
different, and the very air seems gay. I never went down Broadway, at the
promenade hour alone with the blues, without coming back, feeling bluer;
while I never returned from a public promenade in Italy, without rubbing
my hands, saying to m