world, instead of learning cookery and other domestic arts, have the
grievous burden of idleness added to that of their solitary confinement,
not only among the rich and noble, but among that large class which is
neither and wishes to appear both. [Footnote: The poet Gray, genteelly
making the grand tour in 1740, wrote to his father from Florence: "The
only thing the Italians shine in is their reception of strangers. At such
times every thing is magnificence: the more remarkable as in their
ordinary course of life they are parsimonious to a degree of nastiness. I
saw in one of the vastest palaces of Rome (that of the Prince Pamfilio),
the apartment which he himself inhabited, a bed that most servants in
England would disdain to lie in, and furniture much like that of a soph at
Cambridge. This man is worth 30,000_l_. a year." Italian nature has
changed so little in a century, that all this would hold admirably true of
Italian life at this time. The goodly outside in religion, in morals, in
every thing is too much the ambition of Italy; this achieved, she is
content to endure any pang of self-denial, and sell what little comfort
she knows--it is mostly imported, like the word, from England--to
strangers at fabulous prices. In Italy the luxuries of life are cheap, and
the conveniences unknown or excessively dear.] Their idle thoughts, not
drilled by study nor occupied with work, run upon the freedom which
marriage shall bring them, and form a distorted image of the world, of
which they know as little as of their own undisciplined selves. Denied the
just and wholesome amusements of society during their girlhood, it is
scarcely a matter of surprise that they should throw themselves into the
giddiest whirl of its excitement when marriage sets them free to do so.

I have said I do not think Venetians who give each other bad names are
always to be credited, and I have no doubt that many a reputation in
Venice is stained while the victim remains without guilt. A questioned
reputation is, however, no great social calamity. It forms no bar to