Horses
indeed appear to be an indispensable ingredient in the _Balli_ in the large
cities of Italy.

In the _Teatro Cocomera_, comedies are performed, and very generally those
of the inexhaustible Goldoni. I saw the _Bugiardo_ very fairly performed at
this theatre. The story is nearly the same as that of our piece, _The
Liar_, which is I believe imitated from _Le Menteur_ of Corneille. The
actor who did the Liar was a very good one. The actresses screamed too much
and were rather coarse. Another night at the theatre I saw a piece call'd
_II furioso_, a _comedie larmoyante_ which was interesting and well given;
but the voice of the prompter was occasionally too loud. Tragedies are very
seldom played; the language of Alfieri could never, I will not say be given
with effect, but even conceived by the modern actors. It would be like a
tragedy of Sophocles performed by boys at school. There is another reason
too why these tragedies are not given; they abound too much in republican
and patriotic sentiments to be grateful to the ears of the Princes who
reign in Italy, all of whom being of foreign extraction and unshackled by
constitutions, come under the denomination of those beings called by Greeks
[Greek: Turannoi], I use this word in its Greek sense. Of the Tuscan
Government it is but justice to say that from the days of Leopold to the
present day it was and is a mild, just and paternal government, more so
perhaps than any in Europe; and the only one that can any way reconcile one
altogether to those lines of Pope:

For forms of Government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administer'd is best.[83]

In the time of Leopold the factious nobility were kept in check, and the
industrious classes, mercantile and agricultural, encouraged. The peasantry
were, and are, the most affluent in Europe; and this is no small incitement
to the industry that prevails. On the elevation of Leopold to the throne of
the Caesars, the present Grand Duke succeeded in Tuscany; and he followed
the same system that Leopold did, and was equally beloved by his subjects.
Tuscany was the only country in Italy that did not desire a change at the
period of the French conquest, and the only state wherein the French were
not hailed as deliverers. The Tuscans exhibited a very honorable spirit on
the occasion of Buonaparte's visit to the Grand Duke in 1797. They went
together to the Theatre della Pergola, and on their entering into the Grand
Ducal box,