re are none--fairly slip a check case
over the hammock, as we do to our best chairs in England, clap a coarse
leather cover on the carriage top, the coachman wearing a vast brown
great coat, which he spreads on each side him over the corners of his
coach-box, and looks as somebody was saying--like a sitting hen.

The paving of our streets here at Milan is worth mentioning, only
because it is directly contrary to the London method of performing the
same operation. They lay the large flag stones at this place in two
rows, for the coach wheels to roll smoothly over, leaving walkers to
accommodate themselves, and bear the sharp pebbles to their tread as
they may. In every thing great, and every thing little, the diversity of
government must perpetually occur; where that is despotic, small care
will be taken of the common people; where that is popular, little
attention will be paid to the great ones. I never in my whole life heard
so much of birth and family as since I came to this town; where blood
enjoys a thousand exclusive privileges, where Cavalier and Dama are
words of the first, nay of the only importance; where wit and beauty are
considered as useless without a long pedigree; and virtue, talents,
wealth, and wisdom, are thought on only as medals to hang upon the
branch of a genealogical tree, as we tie trinkets to a watch in England.

I went to church, twenty yards from our own door, with a servant to wait
on me, three or four mornings ago; there was a lady particularly well
dressed, very handsome, two footmen attending on her at a distance, took
my attention. Peter, said I, to my own man, as we came out, _chi e
quella dama? who is that lady? Non e dama_, replies the fellow,
contemptuously smiling at my simplicity--_she is no lady_. I thought
she might be somebody's kept mistress, and asked him whose? _Dio ne
liberi_, returns Peter, in a kinder accent--for there _heart_ came in,
and he would not injure her character--God forbid: _e moglie d'un ricco
banchiere_--she is a rich banker's wife. You may see, added he, that she
is no lady if you look--the servants carry no velvet stool for her to
kneel upon, and they have no coat armour in the lace to their liveries:
_she_ a lady! repeated he again with infinite contempt.

I am told that the Arch-duke is very desirous to close this breach of
distinction, and to draw merchants and traders with their wives up into
higher notice than they were wont to remain in. I do not _thi