turs_, uncomfortably aware of the nature of
their words within a very few minutes after they had uttered them. I
may say, however, that I believe that in any dispute on any sort of
subject between any two men in the place, if it had been proposed to
submit the matter in dispute for adjudication to Mr. Browning, the
proposal would have been jumped at with a greater readiness of
_consensus_ than in the case of any other man there.

CHAPTER XI

The Italians, I believe, were "thinking" at a considerably earlier
period than that which in the second letter transcribed in the
preceding chapter Mrs. Browning seems to have considered as the
beginning of their "cogitating" existence, and thinking on the
subjects to which she is there adverting. They were "thinking,"
perhaps, less in Tuscany than in any other part of the peninsula, for
they were eating more and better there. They were very lightly taxed.
The _mezzeria_ system of agriculture, which, if not absolutely the
same, is extremely similar to that which is known as "conacre,"
rendered the lot of the peasant population very far better and more
prosperous than that of the tillers of the earth in any of the other
provinces. And upon the whole the people were contented. The Tuscan
public was certainly not a "pensive public." They ate their bread not
without due condiment of _compagnatico_,[1] or even their chesnuts in
the more remote and primitive mountain districts, drank their sound
Tuscan wine from the generous big-bellied Tuscan flasks holding three
good bottles, and sang their _stornelli_ in cheerfulness of heart, and
had no craving whatsoever for those few special liberties which were
denied them.

[Footnote 1: Anything to make the bread "go down," as our people
say--a morsel of bacon or sausage, a handful of figs or grapes, or a
bit of cheese.]

_Epicuri de grege porci!_ No progress! Yes, I know all that, and
am not saying what should have been, but what was. There _was_ no
progress! The _contadini_ on the little farm which I came to possess
before I left Tuscany cultivated it precisely after the fashion of
their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and strenuously resisted
any suggestion that it could, should, or might be cultivated in any
other way. But my _contadino_ inhabited a large and roomy _casa
colonica_; he and his buxom wife, had six stalwart sons, and was the
richer man in consequence of having them. No, in my early Florentine
days the _cogito,