The

him, and the more frequent his visits, the greater will be his consideration, as such assiduity is regarded as a mark both of confidence and of respect. Dinners, though not uncommon in Rome, Naples, and Milan, are not much in fashion. Italians are very indifferent to the pleasures of the table; their respasts are short, and too hasty in their opinion, for conversation. They devote the whole evenings, and part of the night to society, when they love to meet and enjoy their friends at leisure. In this respect they differ much from us, and indeed from most transalpines, but I know not that we have reason to condemn them. If we consult conviviality, they look to health, and perhaps to economy. On which side rational self enjoyment, and even social is to be found, it is not difficult to determine. Nor, if they are biassed on this occasion by economical motives do they deserve much censure. Their taste for expence takes a different direction. They prefer Minerva to Bacchus, and take less pleasure in regaling themselves on turtle, venison, champagne, and burgundy, than in contemplating pictures, statues, marble halls, and pillared porticos.

As for courage, it is a quality common to the whole species: every nation arrogates it to itself, a proof that it belongs to all. If any seem deficient in it, the deficiency is to be attributed, not to innate cowardice, but to ignorance of the art of war, to want of discipline, to consciousness of the inutility of resistance, or to some such incidental circumstance. Hence, nations most inured to arms display this quality most; and hence the same army, as well as the same individual, sometimes gives surprizing marks of courage and of cowardice in the same campaign. To accuse the Italians of cowardice is to belie their whole history. The troops of the King of Sardinia were distinguished for their valour, while

their monarchs acted the part of warriors. Even in the late invasion, the peasantry themselves, in some parts of the Neapolitan, and particularly of the Roman state, made a bold and generous though ineffectual resistance. Not courage, therefore, but the motives which call it forth, and the means which give it effect, that is discipline, hope, interest, &c. are wanting to the Italians.

Those who reproach the Italians with ignorance must have a very imperfect knowledge of that people, and have confined their observations to the lowest populace of great cities, and to the peasants of certain mountainous tracts and unfrequented provinces. Such classes, in all countries, not excepting the United Kingdom, have little means and less inclination to acquire knowledge; they are every where left much to nature, and consequently retain something of the Savage. The peasantry of the north of Italy, particularly of the Piedmontese and Milanese territories, and those of Tuscany, were, previous to the French invasion, universally taught to read and write; they were in every respect as well instructed as that class ought to be, and equal in point of information to the peasantry of the most flourishing countries in Europe. Even in the Neapolitan territory, without doubt, the worst governed of all the Italian states, I have scen a shepherd boy lying under a tree with a book in his hand, his dog at his feet, and his goats brouzing on the rocky hills around him, a scene more delightful than any described in classic pastoral. The middling classes, which in reality constitute the strength and give the character of a nation, are generally very well acquainted with every thing that regards their duty, the object of their profession, and their respective interests. In fine writing, in the higher rules of arithmetic and in geography, they

are inferior to the same classes in England, but such accomplishments are most valued because most useful, in commercial countries; especially when national prosperity is intimately connected with navigation, and when a spirit of adventure is very generally prevalent in the middling and the lower classes. But, even where the ordinary share of information is wanting, the deficiency is not so perceptible as in more northern regions, whose inhabitants are naturally slow and inattentive. The Italian is acute and observing. These two qualities united supply in some degree the place of reading, and give his conversation more life, more sense, and more interest than are to be found in the discourse of transalpines of much better education.

We now come to the higher class, for against them the reproach is particularly levelled, and supposing the accusation well-grounded, I must suggest a few circumstances in extenuation. On the Continent in general, the various governments are purely monarchical, the whole administration is confined to the sovereign and his ministers, while the body of the nation is excluded from all share and influence in the management of its own concerns. Such an exclusion operates most perceptibly upon the higher classes, whose natural province such management is, and by withdrawing every stimulus to exertion and improvement, it acts as a powerful soporific, and lulls them unavoidably into sloth and ignorance. In a free country, mental improvement brings with it its own reward, oftentimes rank and fortune, and always fame and consideration: it is both necessary and fashionable, and cannot be dispensed with by any individual, who means to attain or to keep a place in the higher orders of society. In a despotic government, all these motives are wanting. The drudgery ne

cessary for the acquisition of information is rewarded only by the consciousness of intellectual superiority; an advantage of little weight in countries, where mental attainments are too much undervalued to attract attention or to excite envy. Hence, after having passed through the ordinary course of college education, or loitered away a few years with a private tutor, the noble youth of the Continent, if not employed in the army sink into domestic indolence, and fritter life away in the endless frivolities of town society.

After this general apology for the ignorance of the continental gentry, I must say, in favour of the Italians in particular, that they stand in less need of it than the same class in any other country. Whether the various republics that lately flourished in Italy furnishes them with more inducements to mental cultivation; or whether the natural affection to literature which had never been totally extinguished even in the barbarous ages, impells them spontaneously to application, I know not; but the Italian nobility have always distinguished themselves by cultivating and encouraging the arts and the sciences. To prove this assertion, which may perhaps surprize many of my readers, I need only observe, that many or rather most of the Italian academies were founded by gentlemen, and are still composed principally of members of that class. Such is the Arcadian academy at Rome, such the Crusca at Florence, the Olympic at Vicenza, the Fisiocritici of Siena, &c. To this proof, in itself sufficiently strong, I will add, that the Italian nobility has produced more authors even in our days than the same class has ever yet done in any country, not excepting our own, where they are in general the best informed. Who has not heard the names Maffei, Carli, Rezzonico, Salluzzi, Doria, Filangieri, Alfieri?

They were all of noble birth, and have certainly done credit to it, and reflected a lustre upon their order more brilliant and more honourable than the blaze of all the coronets and all the stars of Europe united. Many more might be mentioned, but instead of swelling these pages with a dry catalogue of names, I shall only refer the curious reader to the lists of the various academies, (and there is scarce a town in Italy without one or more of these literary associations), and he will find, that they consist, as I have observed, of nobles and clergy almost exclusively. I remember being present at one of the academical assemblies at Florence; it was crowded with members; several sonnets were recited, and some dissertations read by their respective authors. Most of the auditors and all the authors were gentlemen, as I was assured by the person who had been so obliging as to introduce us. Moreover, a taste for the fine arts, sculpture, painting, architecture, music, is almost innate in the Italian gentry, as it seems to have been in the ancient Greeks; now, a taste so refined in itself, and the result of so much observation and of so much sensibility, seems to presuppose some, and indeed no small, degree, of mental cultivation, and is scarcely separable from an acquaintance with the two great sources of information, antiquities and history.

We will now pass to an accusation of a more serious nature, and consider the state of morality in Italy, as far as it regards the intercourse between the sexes; and here again, as I am persuaded that my representation will surprize many of my readers, I think it necessary to make some previous remarks. In the first place, the morality of nations is merely comparative. In all,