a traveller's journal* 



&nd concert with them the amufements of the fucceecU 

 ing day. From half paft one till two in the night, all 

 flock to the theatres. And thus a man feems to live, 

 from the firft day of the year to the laft, in the fame 

 time, becaufe he performs all that relates to day and 

 night in the fame fucceffion ; without giving hknfelf 

 the fmallefi concern, whether, according to our mode 

 of computation, it be early or late. 



By this means, the great concourfe of paiTengers, 

 both on foot and in carriages, which are feen in all the 

 great towns in Italy, efpecially on fundays and holi- 

 days, in the principal ftreets and fquares ; and thus at 

 the Corfo of Rome, and at the Carnival, an enormous 

 multitude of intradlable people, by this mode of 

 reckoning the hours, are guided anci managed, as it 

 were, by a firing. Nay, by dividing day and night fo 

 diftindlly from each other, certain bounds are fet to 

 luxury, which fo readily confounds day and night to- 

 gether, and ufes the one for the purpofes of the other. 



I grant that the Italian might lead the fame courfe of 

 life, and yet compute the hours after our method ; but 

 the inftant that feparates day and night, is to him, un- 

 der his propitious Iky, the moft important epoch of 

 the day. It is even facred to him, as the church al- 

 ways enjoins the vefpers according to this point of time. 

 I took notice, both at Florence and at Milan, that fe- 

 veral perfons, though the public clocks are all marked 

 with figures in the manner of ours, yet continued their 

 watches and regulated their domeftic ceconomy in the 

 old , mode df computation. From all this, to which I 

 might add a great deal more, it will be readily acknow- 

 ledged ; that this method of computing time, which, 



v a to 



