ped it away
without the incumbrance of petty pride, or the mean vanity of giving
what they expressively call _foggezzione_, to those who were proud of
their company and protection. A new-married wench, whose little fortune
of a hundred crowns had been given her by the subscription of many in
the room, seemed as free with them all, as the most equal distribution
of birth or riches could have made her: she laughed aloud, and rattled
in the ears of the gentlemen; replied with sarcastic coarseness when
they joked her, and apparently delighted to promote such conversation as
they would not otherwise have tried at. The ladies shouted for joy,
encouraged the girl with less delicacy than desire of merriment, and
promoted a general banishment of decorum; though I do believe with full
as much or more purity of intention, than may be often met with in a
polished circle at Paris itself.

Such society, however, can please a stranger only as it is odd and as it
is new; when ceremony ceases, hilarity is left in a state too natural
not to offend people accustomed to scenes of high civilization; and I
suppose few of us could return, after twenty-five years old, to the
coarse comforts of _a roll and treacle._

Another style of amusement, very different from this last, called us
out, two or three days ago, to hear the famous Passione de Metastasio
sung in St. Celso's church. The building is spacious, the architecture
elegant, and the ornaments rich. A custom too was on this occasion
omitted, which I dislike exceedingly; that of deforming the beautiful
edifices dedicated to God's service with damask hangings and gold lace
on the capitals of all the pillars upon days of gala, so very
perversely, that the effect of proportion is lost to the eye, while the
church conveys no idea to the mind but of a tattered theatre; and when
the frippery decorations fade, nothing can exclude the recollection of
an old clothes shop. St. Celso was however left clear from these
disgraceful ornaments: there assembled together a numerous and
brilliant, if not an attentive audience; and St. Peter's part in the
oratorio was sung by a soprano voice, with no appearance of peculiar
propriety to be sure; but a satirical nobleman near me said, that
"Nothing could possibly be more happily imagined, as the mutilation of
poor St. Peter was continuing daily, and in full force;" alluding to the
Emperor's rough reformations: and he does not certainly spare the coat
any more