^ Brescia 245 



morning at six o'clock to Brescia; but not being perfectly well, 

 I insisted that he should not come for me without his vettiira, nor 

 before the time. The rascal knocked me up at five, and then 

 \Tithout the carriage ; it was only four steps, he said, and wanted 

 to liurry away my trunk. I begin to know them, and therefore 

 steadily refused to stir: after much vain persuasion, away they 

 went, and in three quarters of an hour returned. The dog drove 

 me a full mile and half, on the road to Brescia, to an inn, where 

 there was another vettiirino, to whom he had sold me ; and there I 

 found myself, packed with tloree other persons, in the worst place; 

 to the contrary of all which, the scoundrel had signed an agree- 

 ment. My expressions of anger only got me laughed at. The 

 world has not such a set of villains as these vetturini. I have read 

 guides, and directories, and travels that speak of this way of 

 journeying as passable: — if not good, very bearable; but they 

 must be very partial, or very careless, if they mention them 

 without indignation. Their carriages are wretched, open, crazy, 

 jolting, dirty dung-carts; and as to their horses, I thought, till I 

 saw them, that the Irish garrans had no rivals on the globe ; but 

 the cavalli di vetturini convinced me of the error. My company 

 were two merchant-like people, and a young man going to the 

 university of Padua; the two first, repeating prayers and count- 

 ing beads. How the country came to be well irrigated is a 

 question. Paternosters will neither dig canals nor make 

 cheese. — 32 miles. 



igth. I had letters for Signore Pilati, secretary to the society 

 of agriculture; he was in the country at his brother's farm, 

 wliither I went with pleasure : he was to introduce me to Count 

 Corniano, the president, but he is absent, twenty miles out of 

 my road. In the evening, to the opera; the house large, but 

 ugly: the Avara, badly acted; and the taste of the audience 

 (the platea, not the boxes, show a nation) still worse. Puns, 

 conceits, distortions, and exaggerated action gained great 

 applause. A child, telling his name, of ten or a dozen hard 

 syllables, with exaggerated mimickry of attempting to repeat 

 them, were encored more violently than the finest airs would 

 have been. This depravity of national taste is amazing amongst 

 a people that have produced such proofs of genius in almost 

 every walk of life. 



20th. After a repetition of the old plagues to find a vettiirino 

 for Verona, agree at last at the extravagant price of ;^^ liri. 

 Depart, after dinner, with a young woman and a boy of 8 or 

 9 years old. She had not two ideas beyond her snuff-box and a 



