80 Notes on a Tour in France, Italy, and Elba. 
and beautiful sepulchral monuments of Dante and Michael Angelo. 
The chisel has here done its best to perpetuate many illustrious 
names which I cannot now enumerate. ‘The museum is rich in ob- 
jects of art, and of the natural sciences. I have seen no collection 
of minerals so large, and so valuable, except that of the Jardin des 
Plantes at Paris. The galleries in the ducal palace are bewitch- 
ingly attractive, adorned with the finest paintings and statues, glit- 
tering with the richest articles of furniture, with sumptuous vases, 
and tables, composed of the most costly and splendid minerals, in- 
laid, such as malachite, amber, lazulite and many of the gems. 
Florence is sometimes termed “ the city of palaces,”’ and is right- 
ly named. The palaces are numerous, and many of them exceed- 
ingly elegant and capacious. Eleven of them were for sale when I 
was in the city. Would you know the value of a palace in Flor- 
ence? At my request, our consul took me to the man, who had 
the disposal of one of them. It was finely situated, was four stories 
high ; had fourteen apartments, and some of them very spacious, on 
each floor, or fifty six rooms in all. The price demanded for the 
entire palace was seven thousand and three hundred dollars, or it 
might be rented for any length of time, for three hundred and sev- 
enty five dollars a year! { left that noble and lovely city with deep 
regret, and made my way to Leghorn by land. 
Unwillmg to prosecute my journey into Switzerland, without see- 
ing Elba, that singular island, celebrated the world over for its min- 
eral productions, and scarcely less celebrated as having been the 
place of Bonaparte’s temporary confinement, I engaged a passage 
to it in an open crazy boat, as no other could be obtained at the 
time. ‘The distance is forty five miles. She set off from Leg- 
horn at noon. I spent a sleepless night on the waters of the 
“Great Sea,” having the heavens for my canopy, and a plank for 
my bed. At six, the following morning, I rejoiced to arrive in 
this city, Porto Ferrajo, which is finely situated on a broad and safe 
bay, capable of affording good anchorage for five hundred ships of 
war, and strongly fortified, containing about seven thousand inhabit- 
ants, three churches, one theatre, the hotel de ville, and the gov- 
ernmental palace, in which I am writing this communication. This 
last edifice was in part erected, and was inhabited by Napoleon. 
The American consul at Leghorn, Mr. Appleton, very politely gave 
me a letter of recommendatiom from the governor of Leghorn to the 
governor of the island of Elba. It procured me the kindest recep- 
