supper, which is as much as to say, you may come and sup here whenever you please; for after the first invitation this is always understood. We have also been at the Countess Suarez's, a favourite of the late Duke, and one that gives the first movement to everything gay that is going forward here. The news is every day expected from Vienna of the Great Duchess's delivery; if it be a boy, here will be all sorts of balls, masquerades, operas, and illuminations; if not, we must wait for the Carnival, when all those things come of course. In the meantime it is impossible to want entertainment, the famous gallery, alone, is an amusement for months; we commonly pass two or three hours every morning in it, and one has perfect leisure to consider all its beauties. You know it contains many hundred antique statues, such as the whole world cannot match, besides the vast collection of paintings, medals, and precious stones, such as no other prince was ever master of; in short, all that the rich and powerful house of Medicis has in so many years got together.1 And besides this city abounds with so many palaces and churches, that you can hardly place yourself anywhere without having some fine one in view, or at least some statue or fountain, magnificently adorned; these undoubtedly are far more numerous than Genoa can pretend to;

1 He catalogued and made occasional short remarks on the pictures, etc., which he saw here, as well as at other places, many of which are in my possession, but it would have swelled this work too much if I had inserted them.-[Mason.] They were afterwards, in 1843, printed by Mitford.-[Ed.]

yet, in its general appearance, I cannot think that Florence equals it in beauty. Mr. Walpole is just come from being presented to the Electress Palatine Dowager; she is a sister of the late Great Duke's; a stately old lady, that never goes out but to church, and then she has guards, and eight horses to her coach. She received him with much ceremony, standing under a huge black canopy, and, after a few minutes talking, she assured him of her goodwill, and dismissed him. She never sees anybody but thus in form; and so she passes her life, poor woman! . . .

XXVI. TO RICHARD WEST.

Florence, January 15, 1740. I THINK I have not yet told you how we left that charming place Genoa: how we crossed a mountain of green marble, called Buchetto: how we came to Tortona, and waded through the mud to come to Castel St. Giovanni, and there ate mustard and sugar with a dish of crows' gizzards. Secondly, how we passed the famous plains; "Quâ Trebie," etc. Nor, thirdly, how we passed through Piacenza, Parma, Modena, entered the territories of the Pope; stayed twelve days at Bologna; crossed the Appennines, and afterwards arrived at Florence. None of these things have I told you, nor do I intend to tell you,

1

1 Here follow the verses beginning "Qua Trebie glaucas,” etc. etc.-[Ed.]

till you ask me some questions concerning them. No not even of Florence itself, except that it is as fine as possible, and has everything in it that can bless the eyes. But, before I enter into particulars, you must make your peace both with me and the Venus de Medicis, who, let me tell you, is highly and justly offended at you for not inquiring, long before this, concerning her symmetry and proportions.1

...

XXVII. TO THOMAS WHARTON.

Proposals for Printing by Subscription, in

THIS LARGE

LETTER,

THE TRAVELS OF T. G. GENT.

WHICH WILL CONSIST OF THE FOLLOWING PARTICULARS.

CHAP. I.

THE Author arrives at Dover; his conversation with the Mayor of that Corporation. Sets out in the pacquet-boat, grows very sick; the Author spews, a very minute account of all the circumstances thereof : his arrival at Calais; how the inhabitants of that country speak French, and are said to be all Papishes ; the Author's reflections thereupon.

1 West responded by sending a graceful little elegy in the manner of Tibullus, in which he acknowledged how justly "irata nobis est Mediona Venus," but attempted to deprecate that anger.-[Ed.]

II.

How they feed him with soupe, and what soupe is. How he meets with a capucin; and what a capucin is. How they shut him up in a post-chaise, and send him to Paris; he goes wondring along during six days; and how there are trees, and houses just as in England. Arrives at Paris without knowing it.

III.

Full account of the river Seine, and of the various animals and plants its borders produce. Description of the little creature called an Abbé, its parts, and their uses; with the reasons why they will not live in England, and the methods, that have been used to propagate them there. A cut of the inside of a nunnery; its structure, wonderfully adapted to the use of the animals, that inhabit it; a short account of them, how they propagate without the help of a male, and how they eat up their own young ones, like cats and rabbits. Supposed to have both sexes in themselves, like a snail. Dissection of a Duchess with copper-plates, very curious.

IV.

Goes to the opera; grand orchestra of humstrums, bag-pipes, salt-boxes, tabors and pipes. Anatomy of a French ear, shewing the formation of it to be entirely different from that of an English one, and that sounds have a directly contrary effect upon one

and the other. Farinelli, at Paris said to have a fine manner, but no voice. Grand ballet, in which there is no seeing the dance for petticoats. Old women with flowers, and jewels stuck in the curls of their grey hair; red-heeled shoes and roll-ups innumerable, hoops, and panniers immeasurable, paint unspeakable. Tables, wherein is calculated with the utmost exactness, the several degrees of red, now in use, from the rising blush of an Advocate's wife to the flaming crimson of a princess of the Blood; done by a limner in great vogue.

V.

The author takes unto him a taylour; his character. How he covers him with silk, and fringe, and widens his figure with buckram a yard on each side; waistcoat, and breeches so strait, he can neither breathe nor walk. How the barber curls him en bequille, and à la negligée, and ties a vast solitaire about his neck; how the milliner lengthens his ruffles to his fingers' ends, and sticks his two arms into a muff. How he cannot stir; and how they cut him in proportion to his clothes.

VI.

He is carried to Versailles; despises it infinitely. A dissertation upon taste. Goes to an Installation in the Chapel Royal.; enter the King and fifty fiddlers solus; kettle-drums and trumpets, queens, and dauphins, princesses, and cardinals, incense, and the mass.

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