Florence 279 



and has himself, many years ago, estabhshed in the neighbour- 

 hood of Florence one of the most considerable manufactories of 

 porcelain that is to be found in Italy. Dine with his majesty's 

 envoy extraordinary, Lord Hervey, with a great party of 

 English; among whom were Lord and Lady Elcho, and Mr. and 

 Miss Charteris, Lord Hume, Mr. and Mrs. Beckford, Mr. Digby, 

 Mr. Tempest, Dr. Cleghoni, professor of history at St. Andrews, 

 who travels with Lord Hume, with ten or a dozen others. I had 

 the honour of being known to Lord and Lady Hervey in Suffolk, 

 so they were not new faces to me; of the others, I had never seen 

 anything : the company was too numerous for a conversation from 

 which much was to be gained. I sat by the fellow of an English 

 college; and my heels had more conversation with his sword 

 than I had with its owner : when a man begins every sentence 

 with a cardinal, a prince, or a celebrated beauty, I generally find 

 myself in too good company; but ]Miss Charteris, who seems a 

 natural character, and was at her ease, consoled me on the other 

 side. At this dinner (which by the way was a splendid one), I 

 was, according to a custom that rarely fails, the worst dressed 

 man in the company; but I was clean, and as quietly in repose 

 on that head as if I had been either fine or elegant. The time 

 was when this single circumstance would have made me out of 

 countenance and uneasy. Thank my stars I have buried that 

 folly. I have but a poor opinion of Quin, for declaring that he 

 could not afford to go plain : he was rich enough in wit to have 

 worn his breeches on his head, if he had pleased ; but a man like 

 myself, without the talent of conversation, before he has well 

 arranged his feelings, finds relief in a good coat or a diamond ring. 

 Lord Hervey, in the most friendly manner, desired I would make 

 his table mv own while I was at Florence, — that I should alwavs 

 find a cover, at three o'clock, /or dinners are not the custom here, 

 and you will very rarely find me from home. This explains the 

 Florentine mode of Hving; at Milan, great dinners are perpetual, 

 here the nobility never give them. I have no idea of a society 

 worth a farthing where it is not the custom to dine with one 

 another. Their conversazioni are good ideas when there are no 

 cards, — but much inferior to what one has at a dinner for a select 

 party. In England, without this, there would be no conversa- 

 tion; and the French custom, of rising immediately after it, 

 which is that also of Italy, destroys, relatively to this object, 

 the best hour in the whole day. 



2yd. To the gallery, where the horrible tale of Niobe and 

 her children is told so terribly well in stone as to raise in the spec- 



