“I like this place extremely, and am of opinion you would do so too:  as to cheapness, I think ’tis impossible to find any part of Europe where both the laws and customs are so contrived purposely to avoid expenses of all sorts; and here is a universal liberty that is certainly one of the greatest agrements in life.  We have foreign ambassadors from all parts of the world, who have all visited me.  I have received visits from many of the noble Venetian ladies; and upon the whole I am very much at my ease here.  If I was writing to Lady Sophia, I would tell her of the comedies and operas which are every night, at very low prices; but I believe even you will agree with me that they are ordered to be as convenient as possible, every mortal going in a mask, and consequently no trouble in dressing, or forms of any kind.”  So Lady Mary wrote to Lady Pomfret on October 10; and a few days later she supplemented the information in a letter to her husband: 

“I find myself very well here.  I am visited by the most considerable people of the town, and all the foreign ministers, who have most of them made great entertainments for me.  I dined yesterday at the Spanish ambassador’s, who even surpassed the French in magnificence.  He met me at the hall-door, and the lady at the stair-head, to conduct me through the long apartment; in short, they could not have shown me more honours, if I had been an ambassadress.  She desired me to think myself patrona del casa, and offered me all the services in her power, to wait on me where I pleased, &c.  They have the finest palace in Venice.  What is very convenient, I hear it is not at all expected I should make any dinners, it not being the fashion for anybody to do it here but the foreign ministers; and I find I can live here very genteelly on my allowance.  I have already a very agreeable general acquaintance; though when I came, here was no one I had ever seen in my life, but the Cavaliere Grimani and the Abbe Conti.  I must do them [the] justice to say they have taken pains to be obliging to me.  The Procurator brought his niece (who is at the head of his family) to wait on me; and they invited me to reside with them at their palace on the Brent, but I did not think it proper to accept of it.  He also introduced me to the Signora Pisani Mocenigo, who is the most considerable lady here.  The Nuncio is particularly civil to me; he has been several times to see me, and has offered me the use of his box at the opera.  I have many others at my service, and, in short it, is impossible for a stranger to be better received than I am.  Here are no English, except a Mr. Bertie and his governor, who arrived two days ago, and who intends but a short stay.”

Lady Mary thoroughly enjoyed herself at Venice, where she found a variety of occupations to occupy her time.  In the mornings she was “wrapt up among my books with antiquarians and virtuosi”; in the afternoons there were visits to pay and receive; in the evenings dinners (at other people’s expense—­which fact did not detract from her pleasure), assemblies, and the theatre and the opera.  In fact, she found there every delight except scandal, but that she did not miss, because she said, she “never found any pleasure in malice.”  So strange a thing is human nature that perhaps she believed it!