It was sent me under the conduct of a serjeant and two Swiss, with desire to return it when I should have done with it.  ’Tis a curiosity, and worthy to be laid up with the relics which we have just been seeing in a small hovel of Capucins on the side of the hill, and which were all brought by his Majesty from Jerusalem.  Among other things of great sanctity there is a set of gnashing of teeth, the grinders very entire; a bit of the worm that never dies, preserved in spirits; a crow of St. Peter’s cock, very useful against Easter; the crisping and curling, frizzling and frowncing of Mary Magdalen, which she cut off on growing devout.  The good man that showed us all these commodities was got into such a train of calling them the blessed this, and the blessed that, that at last he showed us a bit of the blessed fig-tree that Christ cursed.

[Footnote 1:  Hamilton’s Bawn is an old building near Richhill, in the County of Armagh, the subject of one of Swift’s burlesque poems.]

FLORENCE, July 9.

My dear Harry,—­We are come hither, and I have received another letter from you with “Hosier’s Ghost."[1] Your last put me in pain for you, when you talked of going to Ireland; but now I find your brother and sister go with you, I am not much concerned.  Should I be?  You have but to say, for my feelings are extremely at your service to dispose as you please.  Let us see:  you are to come back to stand for some place; that will be about April.  ’Tis a sort of thing I should do, too; and then we should see one another, and that would be charming:  but it is a sort of thing I have no mind to do; and then we shall not see one another, unless you would come hither—­but that you cannot do:  nay, I would not have you, for then I shall be gone.—­So, there are many ifs that just signify nothing at all.  Return I must sooner than I shall like.  I am happy here to a degree.  I’ll tell you my situation.  I am lodged with Mr. Mann, the best of creatures.  I have a terreno all to myself, with an open gallery on the Arno, where I am now writing to you.  Over against me is the famous Gallery:  and, on either hand, two fair bridges.  Is not this charming and cool?  The air is so serene, and so secure, that one sleeps with all the windows and doors thrown open to the river, and only covered with a slight gauze to keep away the gnats.  Lady Pomfret has a charming conversation once a week.  She has taken a vast palace and a vast garden, which is vastly commode, especially to the cicisbeo-part of mankind, who have free indulgence to wander in pairs about the arbours.  You know her daughters:  Lady Sophia is still, nay she must be, the beauty she was:  Lady Charlotte is much improved, and is the cleverest girl in the world; speaks the purest Tuscan, like any Florentine.  The Princess Craon has a constant pharaoh and supper every night, where one is quite at one’s ease.  I am going into the country with her and the prince for a little while, to a villa of the Great Duke’s.  The people are good-humoured here and easy; and what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me.  One loves to find people care for one, when they can have no view in it.