My guide at Leghorn
conducted me to see the burying ground belonging to the English factory,
which is interesting enough from the variety of tombs, monuments and
inscriptions. Here all Protestants, to whatever nation they belong, are
buried. I noticed Smollett's tomb. It is on the whole an interesting spot,
tho' not quite so much so as the cemetery of Pere La Chaise at Paris.
I returned to Florence from Leghorn tout d'une traite in the diligence.
We stopped at Fornacetti (half way) to dine. There is a good table d'Hote
(ordinario) there.
FLORENCE, 22nd Novr.
I have become acquainted with Lord Dillon[102] and his family, who are
residing here and from whom I have received much civility. I met at his
house the Marchese Giuliani, one of the adherents of King Joachim, a very
amiable and clever man who speaks English fluently. Lord Dillon is a man of
much reading and information and his conversation is at all times a great
treat. His lady too is very amiable and accomplished. I went one day with a
friend of mine to a pique-nique party at the Cascino, where a laughable
adventure occurred perfectly in the stile of the novelle of Boccacio. As
it is not the custom in Florence that husbands and wives should go together
to places of public amusement, the lady is generally accompanied by her
cavalier servente: but it by no means follows that the cavalier
servente is the favored lover: one is often adopted as a cover to another
who enjoys the peculiar favors of the lady. A gentleman who arrived at the
hall where the supper table was laid out, somewhat earlier than the rest of
the company and before the chamber was lighted, observed a gentleman and
lady ascend the staircase, turn aside by a corridor and enter a chamber
together. It was dark and he could not distinguish their persons. He waited
fifteen or twenty minutes and observed them leave the chamber together,
pass along the corridor and disappear. He had the curiosity to go into the
chamber they had just left and found on the bed a lady's glove. He took up
the glove and put it in his pocket, determined that this incident should
afford him some amusement at supper and the company also by putting some
fair one to the blush. Accordingly, when the supper was nearly over, he
held up the glove and asked with a loud voice if any lady had lost a glove;
when his own wife who was sitting at the same table at some distance from
him called out with the utmost sangfroid: E il mio! dammelo: l'ho lasciato
cadere. You may conceive what a laugh there was against him, for he had
related the circumstances of his finding it to several of the company
before they sat down to supper. This reminded me of an anecdote mentioned
by Brantome as having occurred at Milan in his time, a glove being in this
case also the cause of the desagrement. A married lady had been much
courted by a Spanish Cavalier of the name of Leon: one day, thinking he had
made sure of her, he followed her into her bedroom, but met with a severe
and decided repulse and was compelled to leave her re infecta. In his
confusion he left one of his gloves on the bed which remained there
unperceived by the lady. The husband of the lady arrived shortly afterwards
and as he was aware of the attentions of the Spaniard to his wife and had
noticed his going into the house, he went directly to his wife's chamber,
where the first thing that captivated his attention was a man's military
glove on the bed. He, however, said nothing, but from that moment abstained
from all conjugal duty. The lady finding herself thus neglected by a
husband who had been formerly tender and attentive, was at a loss to know
the reason, and determined to come to an eclaircissement with him in as
delicate a manner as she could. She therefore took a slip of paper, wrote
the following lines thereon and placed it on his table:
Vigna era, vigna son;
Era podada, or piu non son;
E non so per qual cagion
Non mi poda il mio patron.[103]
The husband, on reading these lines, wrote the following in answer:
Vigna eri, vigna sei;
Eri podada, e piu non sei;
Per la gran fa del Leon
Non ti poda il tuo patron.
The lady on reading these lines perceived at once the cause of her
husband's estrangement and succeeded in explaining the matter
satisfactorily to him, which was facilitated by the ingenuous declaration
of Leon himself that he had tried to succeed but had been repulsed. The
husband and wife being perfectly reconciled lived happily and no doubt the
vine was cultivated as usual.
I left Florence the 27th November, and arrived at Turin 5th December. In an
evil hour I engaged myself to accompany an old Swiss Baroness with whom I
became acquainted at the Hotel of Mine Hembert to accompany her to Turin.
She had with her her son, a fine boy of thirteen years of age but very much
spoiled. We engaged a vetturino to conduct us to Turin, stopping one day
at Milan. The Baroness did not speak Italian and generally sent for me to
interpret for her when any disputes occurred between her and the people at
the inns, and these disputes were tolerably frequent, as she always gave
the servants wherever she stopped a good deal of trouble and on departing
generally forgot to give them the buona grazia. I sometimes paid them for
her myself in order to avoid noise and tumult; at other times we departed
under vollies of abuse and imprecations such as brutta vecchia, maladetta
carogna, and so forth.
