pearance was as young as, and a far
more elegant-looking woman than, the reigning grand duchess. She had
been a princess of the royal family of Saxony, and was no doubt in all
respects, intellectual and moral as well as social, a far more highly
cultivated woman than the scion of the Bourbon House of Naples. She
was the late grand duke's second wife, and not the mother of the
reigning duke.

Why were all these balls given--at no small cost of money and
trouble--by the grand duke and duchess? Why did his Serene Imperial
and Royal Highness intimate to the English minister his wish that
every traveling Briton from Capel Court or Bloomsbury should be
brought to share his hospitality and the pleasures of his society? The
matter was simply this: His Serene Highness was venturing a small fish
to catch a large one. As a good and provident ruler, anxious for the
prosperity and well-being of his subjects, he was making a bid for the
valuable patronage of the British Cockney. He was acting the part of
land-lord of a gratuitous "free-and-easy," in the hope of making
Florence an attractive place of residence to that large class of nomad
English to whom gratuitous court-balls once a week appeared to be a
near approach to those "Saturnia regna" when the rivers ran champagne
and plum-puddings grew on all the bushes. And it cannot be doubted
that the grand duke's patriotic endeavors were crowned with success,
and that his expenditure in wax-lights, music, ices and suppers was
returned tenfold to the shopkeepers and hotel and lodging-house
keepers of his capital.

One other point may be mentioned with reference to these balls, as a
small contribution to the history of a system of social manners and
usages which has now passed away. The utmost latitudinarianism, as has
been mentioned, was allowed in the matter of costume, but this rule
was subject to one exception. On the night of New Year's Day, on
which there was always a ball at the Pitti, all those who attended it
were expected to appear in proper court-dress. Those who were entitled
to any official costume, military or other, donned that. I have seen a
clergyman of the Church of England make his academical robes do duty
as a court-dress, as indeed they properly do at St. James. But in the
rooms at the Pitti His Reverence became the observed of all observers
to a remarkable degree. Those who could lay claim to no official
costume of any sort had to fall back on the old court-dress o