Nice 223 



a distance from the house; that open apartment of a residence, 

 which we call a garden, should be free from the shackle of a 

 contract, and the scene of pleasure, not profit. 



18/A. Walked to Villa Franche, another little sea-port of the 

 King of Sardinia's, on the other side of the mountain, to the east 

 of Nice. Call on Mr. Green, the consul, who has given me letters 

 to Genoa, Alexandria, and Padoua: he has behaved with so 

 friendly an attention that I cannot omit acknowledging warmly 

 his civilities. Learn this morning from him that Lord Bristol is 

 somewhere in Italy, and that Lady Erne is probably at Turin : 

 my stars will not be propitious if I do not see them both. 



19/A. I have now waited two days merely for the means of 

 getting away: I can go either by a. felucca to Genoa, or with a 

 vetturino to Turin; and there is so much for and against both 

 schemes that priority of departure is as good a motive for a 

 preference as any other. If I go by Genoa to Milan, I see Genoa 

 and a part of its territory, which is much, but I lose sixty miles 

 of superb irrigation, from Coni to Turin, and I lose the line of 

 country between Turin and Milan, which I am told is better than 

 that between Genoa and Milan ; as to Turin itself, I should see it 

 in my return. But here is Luigi Tonini, a vetturino, from Coni, 

 who sets out on Monday morning for Turin, which decides me; 

 so with Mr. Green's kind assistance I have bargained with him 

 to take me thither for seven French crowns. He has got two 

 officers in the Sardinian service, and is not to wait longer for 

 filling the third place. We have every day, at the table d'hote, 

 a Florentine Abbe, who has been a marvellous traveller — no 

 man names a country in which he has not travelled : and he is 

 singular in never having made a note, making rather a boast 

 that his memory retains every particular he would wish to know, 

 even to numbers correctly. The height and measures of the 

 pyramids of Egypt, of St. Peter's at Rome, and St. Paul's 

 at London, etc., with the exact length and breadth of every 

 fine street in Europe, he has at his tongue's end. He is a 

 great critic in the beauty of cities; and he classes the four finest 

 in the world thus, i. Rome. — 2. Naples. — 3. Venice. — 4. London, 

 Being a little inclined to the marvellous, in the idea of an old 

 Piedmontese colonel, a knight of St. Maurice, a plain and un- 

 affected character, and apparently a very worthy man, he pecks 

 at the authority of Signore Abbate, and has afforded some 

 amusement to the company. 



20th, Sunday. Mr. Consul Green continues his friendly 

 attentions to the last; I dined, by invitation, with him to-day; 



