be extremely unfair, from the cursory visit of a few hours, to decide positively on the subject, which can only be fully ascertained by a longer experiment, and that I confess I should be exceedingly unwilling to make. I was glad to return to Pisa; it had fresh beauties in my eyes; the Lung'Arno was a charming contrast to Leghorn.

National and local peculiarities are most striking in trifling matters. I went in the dark to put a letter into the post, and I felt not an unseemly wooden slit, but a comely marble hole. There were great crowds before the confectioners' shops, and cakes were exhibited in the windows exactly similar to the twelfth-cakes in London; it was the eve of All-Souls or All-Saints day; it is as well to eat a good cake for the sake of all the saints and of all their souls, and because the dead are not alive, as on account of the epiphany; they are both very good reasons for eating good cake; on such a subject a much worse reason ought to satisfy a much more scrupulous person than I profess to be. In England we celebrate all-hallows eve, or nutcrack night, as this vigil is called, by eating apples and cracking nuts; we disclaim and reject all worship of saints; but as they never did us any harm, if the apples are good and the nuts sound, and we feel inclined to eat them, we indulge our taste, and kindly suffer the departed worthies to take whatever credit they may think redounds to them from the due performances of these ceremonies.

The climate of Pisa is uniformly mild and warm, in the summer perhaps hot and stifling; but sickness steals in every where; I think I heard more of consumptions in Italy than in England: my landlord at the Ussero told me that he had lost his wife by that disease, and had been afflicted by it himself; but by adhering rightly to the rule of eating once only in twenty-four hours, and by some other precautions, he had got the better of it. The climate appears to be unfavourable to the constitutions of English children; I was informed, that amongst other inconveniences, they are liable to the discomfort and risk of having the measles several times.

Tuesday, Nov. 1st.-It was a beautiful morning; I set out at seven in a calèche, and passed through the pleasant village of Pugnano: it is agreeable to see on the walls of the houses lemon trees instead of our pears. What is gained in one way is lost in another; it had struck me what fine gardens might be had here, but I was told that it is hardly possible to water them enough: that excellent vegetable the red beet cannot be produced; the white can be grown, but it is very indifferent. From the number of ditches made for the purpose of irrigation, it seems that there is as much trouble to get the water on the land here as there is to get it off in other countries. The vines are trained on polled poplars; it would be good to poll a poplar, and train a vine in its head in a garden in England, as a memorial of Italy; if the vine would not bear grapes it would at least have a pretty appearance.

We came suddenly upon the famous Lucca, a stately walled city in a plain watered by the Serchio, and surrounded by mountains; a city famous for its oil, and for Castruccio Castracani, who is known to many, because his life was described by Macchiavelli, and to all as the hero of Valperga; all previous knowledge whets the appetite and sharpens the curiosity; and as I had read this novel, I had an additional

motive to survey the city; I took an hour for that purpose, which proved to be two or three.

The churches were hung within and without with black cloth, charged with white skulls and marrow bones, and there were many people in them singing and praying for the dead. There are many handsome churches; the western fronts are of white marble, and formed of several stories of arcades. There were good paintings, and altars rich with silver plate; some churches were hung with Genoa velvet; instead of a door, a large, thick, heavy mat was suspended at the entrance. I walked round the city upon the walls; the walk is wide and planted with trees; the view on all sides is fine. I saw many pretty women here; at Pisa it is difficult to find one.

Little states will always be extremely stately; in going out of the city, a man at the gate handed me a pen and ink, and as white paper is dear, and a book dearer, a bit of blue paper, such as that in which a grocer wraps half a pound of brown sugar, that I might, write my own account of myself in my own way; I suppose the government cannot afford to pay the salary of more than one man, who is able to write, and he was employed in his duties as chancellor. "By her snow may we be made white!" is an inscription in one church on an altar of the Blessed Virgin; it is a conceit, but perhaps a pretty one: "Ut ejus nive dealbemur!"

I passed through a pleasant country to Pistoia, and I met many pretty country girls on the road; as they generally wore a black beaver hat like men, I was reminded of Wales. I reached Pistoia at five, and was immediately led through handsome wide streets to several churches; in one the host was elevated just as we entered; my guide dropped down on his knees as if he had been shot, and the fine organ struck up a triumphant strain. I had not eaten since six in the morning; it was now almost dark; I was tired and faint, but I was led hastily from one scene to another; it was like a dream: it never rains but it pours: at some other time these sights would have been a great treat, now I only sought food and repose.

I was taken into an hospital for women; there was room after room, and bed after bed on both sides of the rooms; they were generally occupied. The air was good, and things were cleaner than they probably would have been at the homes of the patients, but not so clean as an hospital should be. A fine little girl, who was running about the wards, was amused to see a stranger there; she laughed aloud, and, following me, tried to draw my umbrella from my arm, whilst I passed a bed, at the foot of which were placed a scapulary, and a vessel of holy water; an old woman had received the extreme unction, and was waiting for death; they said she was dead, but I heard her cough under the clothes. Such the one had been, such the other would be; how much is done and suffered between the two extremes.

After seeing some more churches, as there was nothing to eat at my hotel, I was conducted to a traiteur's, a cook's shop; the fire was out, and there was no one but a youth in black, like a lawyer's clerk-it seemed as hopeless to apply to him, as to go to chambers in the Temple and call for a dinner. He placed on the table some wine, more drinkable than usual, and bread, for which the place is famous. I supposed that Imust wait a long time-I therefore took out a book to

pass an hour-before I had opened it, the common soup appearedthree cold roast sparrows followed, slender fare, but they were savoury, and helped the good bread down-then came-then came the quarter of a boiled capon, so large, so juicy, so white, so tender, that it was quite an event; the very liver was in itself a blessing-then some fried pigs feet; but in eating these, I can never forget that they stood all their lives in a sty: they offered some other dishes, which I declined: I paid a small sum for an unexpectedly good dinner.

When I returned to the inn, I found all the people on their knees with some priests praying for the dead; I afterwards had some conversation with one of the party; his discourse was such as I should have anticipated from the attitude and society in which I had seen him-it forcibly reminded me of the writings of some of the dead. In walking hastily through the streets of Pistoia, I had been much struck by the beauty of the women; I heard from others, especially from a person who had resided there some time, and upon whose judgment I can rely, that many females of a surprising loveliness are to be met with in that city.

CONFESSIONS OF A THEORIST.

I NEVER was at school, consequently was never whipped into the humanities; nor ever contracted there that early knowledge of the world, which is worth all the precepts of Tully and Seneca. I was taken in hand at my birth by a philosopher, who determined to fashion me after a system of his own, to play my part among men. I am not sure, that his care did not extend back before the moment of my birth, to adapt me to his notion of human perfectibility; for he was a very keen speculatist, who made many researches into the state of the soul in the womb, the first moment of thought, the organization of the sensorium, hereditary propensities, and all that it is not, therefore, to be supposed, that he would overlook such important matters in generating me, whom he designed for a living demonstration of his theory of the human mind. To cut short long descriptions, I was reared on a plan compounded of those of Locke, Rousseau, Helvetius, and Gall. I was as ignorant as a savage, that is, of civilized knowledge; my head was full of crude visions; and I may safely say, that I felt all the intoxication of happiness, without once tasting of the fruit of the forbidden tree. Whether my soul's manufacturer duly handled, according to the instructions of those great theorists, the raw material which God had put into his hands, I will not say; but certain it is, that when I merged from pupillage by his death, I found as great difficulty in conducting myself, as any other stripling would have done, who had no more knowledge of the world than what he could glean from the Offices of Tully, or the Table of Cebes, or the Apophthegms of Epictetus.

We had our special characteristic of philosophy, that was poverty. From my earliest youth, we both, like the Emilius and his master,

wrought at a trade, which was no more nor less than making sabots, or wooden shoes, and trenchers. This provided us with the means of supplying all the wants which two such philosophers permitted themselves to have; and allowed us ample time besides, to devote to intellectual pursuits. I never dreamt of more: but the deuce was in our mental activity; we discovered by a refined course of reasoning, that shoes, and particularly wooden shoes, were an incumbrance to free-born men; that the induration of the foot, which takes place by exposure, fully supplies the wants of wood or leather. Our opinion was corroborated by Locke and Rousseau, who recommend that boys should be accustomed to go without these luxuries; and it was but an easy inference, which we wondered those great men had missed, that à fortiori adults might lay them aside. In fine, we supported our reasonings with such plausible arguments, that the little commune among whom we lived, gave over wearing clogs and sabots, to the mortal deterioration of our trade. However, we carried on the trencher-business, though our own trenchers were considerably lightened by the success of our discovery, and our feet much blistered by carrying it into effect; but then, our love of systems was greatly increased by the triumph of our opinions.

What can control the activity of mind, and above all, of mind once set hunting after systems! Our conceptions enlarged with our poverty, and want itself became the means of informing us. As wood grew daily more scarce, we parted, one by one, with our own trenchers to our customers; and then we found out, what indeed we had already faintly surmised, that trenchers themselves were superfluities. Pained as we were, to owe this grand discovery rather to casualty than to original thinking, we yet pursued it with all the zeal of inspired converts; and instantly set about making proselytes to our opinions.

But here the force of logic was of little avail. To forego shoes, where the meadows were moist, the uplands smooth, the villagers themselves active and hardy, was an easy matter, recommended too by economy-a pair of wooden shoes being worth a whole set of trenchers. But to part with the trenchers-that sacred area which circumscribes and appropriates each man's share of his provisions— that dear, invaluable monopoly, over which no toll, no excise, no execution can be maintained at law-to part with the chartered ware, and henceforth to have all eatable in common, at the mercy of the strongest and swiftest among bolters or masticulators-forbid it, justice and equity! Thus they all exclaimed, young and old, toothed and toothless. Our new theory was thus, for a time, at fault: true, we ceased to make wooden ware for them; and sorely we rued our devotions to principle, as we were not excited by the least prospect of gaining over a single conformist. The inhabitants only took the more care of their dishes; while we starved most gloriously in defence of their abjuration. Whether it was want, or zeal, that quickened our inventive faculties, we hit upon an expedient to promote our theory that merits the attention of all innovators. The measure, I own, partook of much artifice and injustice; but the arguments by which we reconciled it to ourselves, are well known to theorists; and we were such infatuated theorists, as to be prepared to go any lengths that could possibly come under the head of pious frauds. To it then

we went headlong. With tongues of deceit, we persuaded the villagers separately, that we repented us of our ways, and were inclined to resume our occupation-that we only waited for a fair opportunity of retracting in public, and soliciting the renewed patronage of our friends-that for this purpose we contemplated a village feast in the Bucolic style, in which Menalcas and Melibæus were to be personated by me and my Mentor, who should deliver an humble apology, and what not, in rhyme; but alas! we wanted both food and trenchers!

The poor peasantry, as delighted as if they had heard a Chancellor of the Exchequer promise them prosperity without bounds, immedi ately offered to supply our deficiencies, and that with a delicacy which would have shamed a refined people. In the dusk of the evening there came from every house, separately, as we had planned it, hampers of ware and provisions. Our little cabin never was so well furnished. We sat up all night, disposing the house for the morrow's festival, and preparing ourselves to act becomingly our parts. A burst of malicious laughter would now and then distort the features of the grave projector, as he contemplated the irremediable alternative to which the recusants would be driven, of embracing his system, by this master-stroke of policy and expediency. Well, the guests arrived, and soon filled the outer apartment of the cabin, where I was left to receive them, and to apologize for the absence of my tutor, who was performing the office of high-priest of the altar in the inner room, as might indeed be guessed from the savory steams of goose and bacon which transpired, along with powerful scents of burning woods. As I cast my eyes round upon the expecting visages of our guests, beaming on me with the satisfaction and consciousness of conferred obligation, I felt a pang like that of ingratitude, at my heart, which rebelled against the system in spite of me, incapacitating me from the ironical prologue that I was to have spoken. "The poor lad is fainting with the heat," exclaimed some one, at sight of my paleness; "open the doors." The doors were instantly opened, and oh, shame to philosophy! my poor master was discovered with tongs in hand, in the act of laying on the fire the last borrowed trencher of his benefactors!

Every guest stood aghast as he beheld the bare table, on which one or two roast joints were already tumbled, and as the dreadful truth flashed upon him, that he must henceforth dine untrenchered. The suddenness of the irruption put to flight the presence of mind even of my cool stoical preceptor. The conned harangue, with which he meant to insult over his adversaries, was sunk amid the reproaches and the execrations that burst upon him from every side. Never shall I forget the intrepidity with which he stood the brunt of their curses; nor his sublime ejaculation when they were about to throw him on the pile of flaming dishes: "I die for science, and I glory in my death." A few of the elders, however, interfered, and saved him from the auto-da-fè. It was agreed to seek justice from the tribunals, to petition the legislature, or even to address the king in person, against such a public transgression. As an accomplice I was dragged before the high court of bailiffs, to an assize full one day's journey from the commune; and as this was the only trial for half a century that had proceeded from that district, it was determined to conduct it with