them insensible to its value? By cultivating their minds
their hearts would become isolated; but these very women would soon
become worthy a man of superior mind, if such a man were the object of
their tender affection[21].

"Everything here sleeps: but in a country where great interests are
dead, repose and carelessness are more noble than a busy anxiety about
trifling concerns.

"Even literature languishes in a country where thought is not renewed by
the strong and varied action of life.--But what nation has testified
more admiration for literature and the fine arts than Italy? We are
informed by history, that the popes, the princes, and the people, have
at all times paid to painters, poets, and distinguished writers, the
most public homage. This enthusiastic veneration of talent is I confess,
my lord, one of the first motives of my attachment to this country.--We
do not find here that _blasee_ imagination, that discouraging temper of
mind, that despotic mediocrity, which in other countries so effectually
torment and stifle natural genius.--A happy idea, sentiment, or
expression, sets an audience on fire, if I may say so. By the same rule
that talent holds the first rank amongst us, it excites considerable
envy; Pergolese was assassinated for his _Stabat Mater_; Giorgione armed
himself with a cuirass when he was obliged to paint in public; but the
violent jealousy which talent inspires amongst us, is that which, in
other nations, gives birth to power. This jealousy does not degrade its
object; it may hate, proscribe, and kill, but it is nevertheless mingled
with the fanaticism of admiration, and encourages genius, even in
persecuting it. To conclude; when we see so much life in so confined a
circle, in the midst of so many obstacles and so much subjection of
every kind, we cannot avoid in my opinion taking the deepest interest in
a people who inhale, with so much avidity, the little air which the
loopholes of imagination allow to enter through the walls that confine
them.

"That this confinement is such, I will not deny: nor that men rarely
acquire in Italy that dignity, that boldness, which distinguishes free
and military nations.--I will even admit my lord, if you choose, that
the character of such nations is capable of inspiring women with more
love and enthusiasm. But might it not also be possible, that a noble and
interested man, cherishing the most rigid virtues, might unite in his
character every quality tha