of their union, with a fresh bouquet, the size of which intimates the degree of affection and respect that he entertains for her.  But should the lover’s finances be slender, and his nuptials long delayed, he must find this elegant custom a very ruinous one, since the price of the best of these bouquets (and who durst for his own credit’s sake present an inferior one?) is five or six francs.  The Sposina appears everywhere and everyday with a bouquet in her hand, closely attended by her lover, and either or both of her parents; and a female, a stranger in Genoa, commits a breach of etiquette by walking through the streets carrying a nosegay, besides subjecting herself to the impertinence of a thousand eyes, that ask, “Are you a Sposina?” The wedding is celebrated with splendour, the fortune of the bride being sometimes expended in purchasing a magnificent dress, which is then deemed essential.  Amongst the highest classes, the English custom of the bride and bridegroom quitting the wedding party immediately after the performance of the marriage-ceremony, for a tour, has commenced; but this innovation upon their established national manners, has not yet obtained a very general footing.  The match-maker is, upon the wedding-day, presented with a sum of money adequate to the trouble she has taken to effect the alliance; for a lack of beauty, or fortune on the lady’s side, mars her matrimonial prospects, and causes as great difficulties respecting her settlement in life, at Genoa, as in some other places I could mention rather nearer home.  Once, being in company with an ancient dame, who had brought about a marriage that astonished all Genoa, she informed me, that she received as her douceur upon the occasion, 50_l_.  This, I am to conclude, was a liberal recompense; for the Sposina, in that instance, was so plain, (a circumstance unusual with the Genoese women,) and afflicted with so bad a breath, as to be an object of disgust with all the men who heard of her.  The bouquets which I have mentioned, are peculiar in structure, and beautiful in appearance:  they are composed of the most brilliantly coloured flowers, disposed round a large central flower, in tiers, or rows, of the same colour; as, first perhaps, a row of red, then white, then purple, then yellow, then blue, &c. &c.; the stalks are cut short, curiously attached to wire by fine silk or thread, and being bound compactly together, so that the stalks and wires brought into a point, form a convenient handle, the petals of the flowers stand out in lines of the most vivid hues, making a kind of smooth, expanded, circular, and convex, surface.  The manufacture of these bouquets, one of which takes a considerable time to complete, is a distinct occupation, and the sale of them, quite a trade; and though made elsewhere than at Genoa, those of that town are most esteemed, and sent over all parts of Italy.  The flowers composing these bouquets, will keep for at least a fortnight