red to the FreeMasons,
Gregoreans, and Antigallicans of England.

Just without one of the gates of Florence, there is a triumphal arch
erected on occasion of the late emperor's making his public entry, when
he succeeded to the dukedom of Tuscany: and herein the summer evenings,
the quality resort to take the air in their coaches. Every carriage
stops, and forms a little separate conversazione. The ladies sit
within, and the cicisbei stand on the foot-boards, on each side of the
coach, entertaining them with their discourse. It would be no
unpleasant inquiry to trace this sort of gallantry to its original, and
investigate all its progress. The Italians, having been accused of
jealousy, were resolved to wipe off the reproach, and, seeking to avoid
it for the future, have run into the other extreme. I know it is
generally supposed that the custom of choosing cicisbei, was calculated
to prevent the extinction of families, which would otherwise often
happen in consequence of marriages founded upon interest, without any
mutual affection in the contracting parties. How far this political
consideration may have weighed against the jealous and vindictive
temper of the Italians, I will not pretend to judge: but, certain it
is, every married lady in this country has her cicisbeo, or servente,
who attends her every where, and on all occasions; and upon whose
privileges the husband dares not encroach, without incurring the
censure and ridicule of the whole community. For my part, I would
rather be condemned for life to the gallies, than exercise the office
of a cicisbeo, exposed to the intolerable caprices and dangerous
resentment of an Italian virago. I pretend not to judge of the national
character, from my own observation: but, if the portraits drawn by
Goldoni in his Comedies are taken from nature, I would not hesitate to
pronounce the Italian women the most haughty, insolent, capricious, and
revengeful females on the face of the earth. Indeed their resentments
are so cruelly implacable, and contain such a mixture of perfidy, that,
in my opinion, they are very unfit subjects for comedy, whose province
it is, rather to ridicule folly than to stigmatize such atrocious vice.

You have often heard it said, that the purity of the Italian is to be
found in the lingua Toscana, and bocca Romana. Certain it is, the
pronunciation of the Tuscans is disagreeably guttural: the letters C
and G they pronounce with an aspiration, which hurts t