he ear of an
Englishman; and is I think rather rougher than that of the X, in
Spanish. It sounds as if the speaker had lost his palate. I really
imagined the first man I heard speak in Pisa, had met with that
misfortune in the course of his amours.

One of the greatest curiosities you meet with in Italy, is the
Improvisatore; such is the name given to certain individuals, who have
the surprising talent of reciting verses extempore, on any subject you
propose. Mr. Corvesi, my landlord, has a son, a Franciscan friar, who
is a great genius in this way.

When the subject is given, his brother tunes his violin to accompany
him, and he begins to rehearse in recitative, with wonderful fluency
and precision. Thus he will, at a minute's warning, recite two or three
hundred verses, well turned, and well adapted, and generally mingled
with an elegant compliment to the company. The Italians are so fond of
poetry, that many of them, have the best part of Ariosto, Tasso, and
Petrarch, by heart; and these are the great sources from which the
Improvisatori draw their rhimes, cadence, and turns of expression. But,
lest you should think there is neither rhime nor reason in protracting
this tedious epistle, I shall conclude it with the old burden of my
song, that I am always--Your affectionate humble servant.

LETTER XXVIII

NICE, February 5, 1765.

DEAR SIR,--Your entertaining letter of the fifth of last month, was a
very charitable and a very agreeable donation: but your suspicion is
groundless. I assure you, upon my honour, I have no share whatever in
any of the disputes which agitate the public: nor do I know any thing
of your political transactions, except what I casually see in one of
your newspapers, with the perusal of which I am sometimes favoured by
our consul at Villefranche. You insist upon my being more particular in
my remarks on what I saw at Florence, and I shall obey the injunction.
The famous gallery which contains the antiquities, is the third story
of a noble stone-edifice, built in the form of the Greek Pi, the upper
part fronting the river Arno, and one of the legs adjoining to the
ducal-palace, where the courts of justice are held. As the house of
Medici had for some centuries resided in the palace of Pitti, situated
on the other side of the river, a full mile from these tribunals, the
architect Vasari, who planned the new edifice, at the same time
contrived a corridore, or covered passage, extending from