“‘No, no, in the devil’s name,’ said the prince, ’harness your
    beasts, and do not lose a moment.  There is a piastre for your
    buona-mano.’

    “They were soon at Florence.

    “The first care of the prince, after having breakfasted, for
    neither he nor the princess had eaten any thing since they had
    left Livorno, was to lay his complaint before a magistrate.

    “‘Where is the paper?’ said the judicial authority.

    “‘I have none,’ said the prince.

“‘Then I counsel you,’ replied the judge, ’to let the matter drop.  Only the next time give five piastres to the master, and a piastre and a half to the driver; you will save five piastres and a half, and arrive eighteen hours sooner.’”—­P. 97.

M. Dumas, however, arrives at Florence without any such disagreeable adventure as sleeping in a coach-house.  He gives a pleasing description of the Florentine people, amongst whom the spirit of commerce has died away, but left behind a considerable share of the wealth and luxury that sprang from it.  There is little spirit of enterprise; no rivalry between a class enriching itself and the class with whom wealth is hereditary; the jewels that were purchased under the reign of the Medici still shine without competitors on the promenade and at the opera.  It is a people that has made its fortune, and lives contentedly on its revenues, and on what it gets from the stranger.  “The first want of a Florentine,” says our author, “is repose; even pleasure is secondary; it costs him some little effort to be amused.  Wearied of its frequent political convulsions, the town of the Medici aspires only to that unbroken and enchanted slumber which fell, as the fairy tale informs us, on the beautiful lady in the sleepy wood.  No one here seems to labour, except those who are tolling and ringing the church-bells, and they indeed appear to have rest neither day nor night.”

There are but three classes visible in Florence.  The nobility—­the foreigner—­and the people.  The nobility, a few princely houses excepted, spend but little, the people work but little, and it would be a marvel how these last lived if it were not for the foreigner.  Every autumn brings them their harvest in the shape of a swarm of travellers from England, France, or Russia, and, we may now add, America.  The winter pays for the long delicious indolence of the summer.  Then the populace lounges, with interminable leisure, in their churches, on their promenades, round the doors of coffee-houses that are never closed either day or night; they follow their religious processions; they cluster with an easy good-natured curiosity round every thing that wears the appearance of a fete; taking whatever amusement presents itself, without caring to detain it, and quitting it without