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fertility of Lombardy. — My companion, who is in office as an 

 architect to the king, as well as I could gather from the hints he 

 dropped, lived nine years in Sardinia. The account he gives of 

 that island contains some circumstances worth noting. What 

 keeps it in its present unimproved situation is chiefly the extent 

 of estates,, the absence of some very great proprietors, and the 

 inattention of all. The Duke of Assinara has 300,000 livres a 

 year, or £15,000 sterling. The Duke of St. Piera 160,000. The 

 Marchese di Pascha, very great. Many of them live in Spain. 

 The Conte de Girah, a grandee of Spain, has an estate of two 

 days' journey, reaching from Poula to Oliustre. The peasants 

 are a miserable set, that live in poor cabins, without other chim- 

 neys than a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. The inlemperia 

 is frequent and pernicious everwhere in summer; yet there 

 are very great mountains. Cattle have nothing to eat in winter, 

 but browsing on shrubs, etc. There are no wolves. The oil so 

 bad as not to be eatable. Some wine almost as good as Malaga, 

 and not unlike it. No silk. The great export is wheat, which 

 has been known to yield forty for one; but seven or eight for one 

 is the common produce. Bread, i sou the pound; beef, 2 sous; 

 mutton, 2i sous. There are millions of wild ducks; such 

 numbers that persons fond of shooting have gone thither merely 

 for the incredible sport they afford. 



x']th. Waited on our ambassador, the honourable Mr. Trevor, 

 who was not at home ; but I had an invitation to dinner soon 

 after, which I accepted readily, and passed a very pleasant day. 

 Mr. Trevor's situation is not compatible with his being a practical 

 farmer; but he is a man of deep sense and much observation; all 

 such are political farmers, from conviction of the importance 

 of the subject. He converses well on it ; Mr. Trevor mentioned 

 some Piedmontese nobles, to whom he would have introduced 

 me if my stay had been long enough ; but he would not admit 

 an excuse respecting the Portuguese ambassador, of whom he 

 speaks as a person remarkably well informed and who loves 

 agriculture greatly. In the evening, accompanied ]\Irs. Trevor 

 to the great opera-house ; a rehearsal of VOlympiade, new-set by a 

 young composer, Frederici; Marchese sung. 



18/A. I am not a little obliged to Mr. Trevor for introducing 

 me to one of the best informed men I have any^vhere met with, 

 Don Roderigo de Souza Continho, the Portuguese minister at the 

 court of Turin, with whom I dined to-day; he had invited to 

 meet me the Medico Bonvicino, I'Abbatte Vasco, author of 

 several political pieces of merit, and Signore Bellardi, a botanist 



