taken place in the reign of
Ferdinand VI.

The famous musician burst into tears, and said that Queen Barbara was as
good as Elizabeth of Parma was wicked.

Borschi might have been seventy when I saw him at Bologna. He was very
rich and in the enjoyment of good health, and yet he was unhappy,
continually shedding tears at the thought of Spain.

Ambition is a more powerful passion than avarice. Besides, Farinello had
another reason for unhappiness.

He had a nephew who was the heir to all his wealth, whom he married to a
noble Tuscan lady, hoping to found a titled family, though in an indirect
kind of way. But this marriage was a torment to him, for in his impotent
old age he was so unfortunate as to fall in love with his niece, and to
become jealous of his nephew. Worse than all the lady grew to hate him,
and Farinello had sent his nephew abroad, while he never allowed the wife
to go out of his sight.

Lord Lincoln arrived in Bologna with an introduction for the cardinal
legate, who asked him to dinner, and did me the honour of giving me an
invitation to meet him. The cardinal was thus convinced that Lord Lincoln
and I had never met, and that the grand duke of Tuscany had committed a
great injustice in banishing me. It was on that occasion that the young
nobleman told me how they had spread the snare, though he denied that he
had been cheated; he was far too proud to acknowledge such a thing. He
died of debauchery in London three or four years after.

I also saw at Bologna the Englishman Aston with Madame Slopitz, sister of
the Charming Cailimena. Madame Slopitz was much handsomer than her
sister. She had presented Aston with two babes as beautiful as Raphael's
cherubs.

I spoke of her sister to her, and from the way in which I sang her
praises she guessed that I had loved her. She told me she would be in
Florence during the Carnival of 1773, but I did not see her again till
the year 1776, when I was at Venice.

The dreadful Nina Bergonci, who had made a madman of Count Ricla, and was
the source of all my woes at Barcelona, had come to Bologna at the
beginning of Lent, occupying a pleasant house which she had taken. She
had carte blanche with a banker, and kept up a great state, affirming
herself to be with child by the Viceroy of Catalonia, and demanding the
honours which would be given to a queen who had graciously chosen Bologna
as the place of her confinement. She had a special recommendation to the
legate,