Place the whole way to the Porta Orientale.  On the left hand of this street, on proceeding from the Cathedral to the Porta Orientale, is a beautiful and extensive garden; an ornamental iron railing separates it from the street.  From the number of fine trees here there is so much shade therefrom that it forms a very agreeable promenade during the heat of the day.  On the right hand side of the Corsia de’ Servi, proceeding from the Cathedral, are the finest buildings (houses of individuals) in Milan, among which I particularly distinguished a superb palace built in the best Grecian taste with a colonnaded portico, surmounted by eight columns.  Just outside the Porta Orientale is the Corso, with a fine spacious road with Allees on each side lined with trees.  The Corso forms the evening drive and promenade a cheval of the beau monde.  I have seen nowhere, except in Hyde Park, such a brilliant show of equipages as on the Corso of Milan.  I observe that the women display a great luxe de parure at this promenade.

The women here appear to me in general handsome, and report says not at all cruel.  They have quite a fureur for dress and ornaments, hi the adapting of which, however, they have not so much taste as the French women have.  The Milanese women do not understand the simplicite recherchee in their attire, and are too fond of glaring colours.  The Milanese women are accused of being too fond of wine, and a calculation has been made that two bottles per diem are drank by each female in Milan; but, supposing this calculation were true, let not the English be startled, for the wine of this, country is exceedingly light, lighter indeed than the weakest Burgundy wine; indeed, I conceive that two bottles of Lombard wine are scarce equivalent in strength to four wine glasses of Port wine.  The Lombards for this reason never drink water with their wine; and indeed it is not necessary, for I am afraid that all the wine drank in Milan is already baptised before it leaves the hands of the vendor, except that reserved for the priesthood; such, at any rate, was the case before the French Revolution, and no doubt the wine sellers would oppose the abolition of so ancient and sacred a custom.  The Milanese are a gay people, hospitable and fond of pleasure:  they are more addicted to the pleasures of the table than the other people of Italy, and dinner parties are in consequence much more frequent here than in other Italian towns.  The women here are said to be much better educated than in the rest of Italy, for Napoleon took great pains to promote and encourage female instruction, well knowing that to be the best means of regenerating a country.

The dialect spoken in the Milanese has a harsh nasal accent, to my ear peculiarly disagreeable.  Pure Italian or Tuscan is little spoken here, and that only to foreigners.  French, on the contrary, is spoken a good deal; but the Milanese, male and female, among one another, speak invariably the patois of the country, which has more analogy to the French than to the Italian, but without the grace or euphony of either.