the least distrust that some other quite as good will occupy its place.  “One evening we were roused,” says our traveller, “by a noise in the street:  two or three musicians of the opera, on leaving the theatre, had taken a fancy to go home playing a waltz.  The scattered population of the streets arranged themselves, and followed waltzing.  The men who could find no better partners, waltzed together.  Five or six hundred persons were enjoying this impromptu ball, which kept its course from the opera house to the Port del Prato, where the last musician resided.  The last musician having entered his house, the waltzers returned arm-in-arm, still humming the air to which they had been dancing.”

“It follows,” continues M. Dumas, “from this commercial apathy, that at Florence you must seek after every thing you want.  It never comes of itself—­never presents itself before you;—­everything there stays at home—­rests in its own place.  A foreigner who should remain only a month in the capital of Tuscany would carry away a very false idea of it.  At first it seems impossible to procure the things the most indispensable, or those you do procure are bad; it is only after some time that you learn, and that not from the inhabitants, but from other foreigners who have resided there longer than yourself, where anything is to be got.  At the end of six months you are still making discoveries of this sort; so that people generally quit Tuscany at the time they have learned to live there.  It results from all this that every time you visit Florence you like it the better; if you should revisit it three or four times you would probably end by making of it a second country, and passing there the remainder of your lives."[2]

[2] It is amusing to contrast the artistic manner in which our author makes all his statements, with the style of a guide-book, speaking on the manufactures and industry of Florence.  It is from Richard’s Italy we quote.  Mark the exquisite medley of humdrum, matter-of-fact details, jotted down as if by some unconscious piece of mechanism:—­“Florence manufactures excellent silks, woollen cloths, elegant carriages, bronze articles, earthenware, straw hats, perfumes, essences, and candied fruits; also, all kinds of turnery and inlaid work, piano-fortes, philosophical and mathematical instruments, &c.  The dyes used at this city are much admired, particularly the black, and its sausages are famous throughout all Italy.”

Shall we visit the churches of Florence with M. Dumas?  No, we are not in the vein.  Shall we go with him to the theatres—­to the opera—­to the Pergola?  Yes, but not to discuss the music or the dancing.  Every body knows that at the great theatres of Italy the fashionable part of the audience pay very little attention to the music, unless it be a new opera, but make compensation by listening devoutly to the ballet.  The Pergola is the great