without familiarity.  I am told he is oppressed by the cares of his station; and from a certain irresolution of voice and eye, that bespeaks not so much weakness as a speculative cast of mind, I can believe him less fitted for active government than for the meditations of the closet.  He appears, however, zealous to perform his duties; questioned me eagerly about my impressions of Italy, and showed a flattering familiarity with my works, and a desire to profit by what he was pleased to call my exceptional knowledge of agriculture.  I thought I perceived in him a sincere wish to study the welfare of his people; but was disappointed to find among his chosen associates not one practical farmer or economist, but only the usual closet-theorists that are too busy planning Utopias to think of planting turnips.

The 7th.

Visited his Highness’s estate at Valsecca.  Here he has converted a handsome seat into a school of agriculture, tearing down an immense orangery to plant mulberries, and replacing costly gardens and statuary by well-tilled fields:  a good example to his wealthy subjects.  Unfortunately his bailiff is not what we should call a practical farmer; and many acres of valuable ground are given up to a botanic garden, where exotic plants are grown at great expense, and rather for curiosity than use:  a common error of noble agriculturists.

In the afternoon with the abate de Crucis to the Benedictine monastery, a league beyond the city.  Here I saw the best farming in the duchy.  The Prior received us politely and conversed with intelligence on drainage, crops and irrigation.  I urged on him the cultivation of turnips and he appeared struck by my arguments.  The tenants on this great estate appeared better housed and fed than any I have seen in Pianura.  The monks have a school of agriculture, less pretentious but better-managed than the Duke’s.  Some of them study physics and chemistry, and there are good chirurgeons among them, who care for the poor without pay.  The aged and infirm peasants are housed in a neat almshouse, and the sick nursed in a clean well-built lazaret.  Altogether an agreeable picture of rural prosperity, though I had rather it had been the result of free labour than of monastic bounty.

The 8th.

By appointment, to the Duke’s Egeria.  This lady, the Signorina F.V., having heard that I was in Pianura, had desired the Signor Andreoni to bring me to her.

I had expected a female of the loud declamatory type:  something of the Corilla Olimpica order; but in this was agreeably disappointed.  The Signorina V. is modestly lodged, lives in the frugal style of the middle class, and refuses to accept a title, though she is thus debarred from going to court.  Were it not indiscreet to speculate on a lady’s age, I should put hers at somewhat above thirty.  Though without the Duchess’s commanding elegance she has, I believe, more beauty of a quiet sort:  a