there were all the beauties, all the jewels, and all the sugarplums of Florence.  Servants loaded with great chargers full of comfits heap the tables with them, the women fall on with both hands, and stuff their pockets and every creek and corner about them.  You would be as much amazed at us as at any thing you saw:  instead of being deep in the arts, and being in the Gallery every morning, as I thought of course to be sure I would be, we are in all the idleness and amusements of the town.  For me, I am grown so lazy, and so tired-of seeing sights, that, though I have been at Florence six months, I have not seen Leghorn, Pisa, Lucca, or Pistoia; nay, not so much as one of the Great Duke’s villas.  I have contracted so great an aversion to postchaises, and have so absolutely lost all curiosity, that, except the towns in the straight road to Great Britain, I shall scarce see a jot more of a foreign land; and trust me, when I returt), I will not visit the Welsh mountains, like Mr. Williams.  After Mount Cenis, the Boccheto, the Giogo, Radicofani, and the Appian Way, one has mighty little hunger after travelling.  I shall be mighty apt to set up my staff at Hyde Park corner:  the alehouseman there at Hercules’s Pillars(216) was certainly returned from his travels into foreign parts.

Now I’ll answer your questions.

I have made no discoveries in ancient or modern arts.  Mr. Addison travelled through the poets, and not through Italy; for all his ideas are borrowed from the descriptions, and not from the reality.  He saw places as they were, not as they are.  I am very well acquainted with Dr. Cocchi; (217) he is a good sort of man, rather than a great man; he is a plain honest creature, with quiet knowledge, but I dare say all the English have told you, he has a very particular understanding:  I really don’t believe they meant to impose on you, for they thought so.  As to Bondelmonti, he is much less; he is a low mimic; the brightest cast of his parts attains to the composition of a sonnet:  he talks irreligion with- English boys, sentiment with my sister, (218) and bad French with any one that will hear him.  I will transcribe you a little song that he made t’other day; ’tis pretty enough; Gray turned it into Latin, and I into English; you will honour him highly by putting it into French, and Asheton into Greek.  Here ’tis.  Spesso Amor sotto la forma D’amista ride, e s’asconde; Poi si mischia, e si confonde Con lo sdegno e col rancor.

In pietade ei si trasforma,
Pas trastullo e par dispetto;
ma nel suo diverso aspetto,
Sempre egli `a l’istesso Amor.

Risit amicitiae interd`um velatus amictu,
Et ben`e composit`a veste fefellit Amor: 
Mox irae assumpsit cultus faciemque minantem,
Inque odium versus, versus et in lacrymas: 
Ludentem fuge, nec lacrymanti aut furenti;
Idem est dissimili semper in ore Deus.

Love often in the comely mien
Of friendship fancies to be seen;
Soon again he shifts his dress,
And wears disdain and rancour’s face.