Figs too are here in such perfection, that it is not easy for an English gardener to guess at their excellence; for it is not by superior size, but taste and colour, that they are distinguished; small, and green on the outside, a bright full crimson within, and we eat them with raw ham, and truly delicious is the dainty.  By raw ham, I mean ham cured, not boiled or roasted.  It is no wonder though that fruits should mature in such a sun as this is; which, to give a just notion of its penetrating fire, I will take leave to tell my countrywomen is so violent, that I use no other method of heating the pinching-irons to curl my hair, than that of poking them out at a south window, with the handles shut in, and the glasses darkened to keep us from being actually fired in his beams.  Before I leave off speaking about the fruit, I must add, that both fig and cherry are produced by standards; that the strawberries here are small and high-flavoured, like our woods, and that there are no other.  England affords greater variety in that kind of fruit than any nation; and as to peaches, nectarines, or green-gage plums, I have seen none yet.  Lady Cowper has made us a present of a small pine-apple, but the Italians have no taste to it.  Here is sun enough to ripen them without hot-houses I am sure, though they repeatedly told us at Milan and Venice, that this was the coolest place to pass the summer in, because of the Appenine mountains shading us from the heat, which they confessed to be intolerable with them.

Here however, they inform us, that it is madness to retire into the country as English people do during the hot season; for as there is no shade from high timber trees, one is bit to death by animals, gnats in particular, which here are excessively troublesome, even in the town, notwithstanding we scatter vinegar, and use all the arts in our power; but the ground-floor is coolest, and every body struggles to get themselves a terreno as they call it.

Florence is full just now, and Mr. Jean Figliazzi, an intelligent gentleman who lives here, and is well acquainted with both nations, says, that all the genteel people come to take refuge from the country to Florence in July and August, as the subjects of Great Britain run to the country from the heats of London or Bath.

The flowers too! how rich they are in scent here! how brilliant in colour! how magnificent in size!  Wall-flowers perfuming every street, and even every passage; while pinks and single carnations grow beside them, with no more soil than they require themselves; and from the tops of houses, where you least expect it, an aromatic flavour highly gratifying is diffused.  The jessamine is large, broad-leaved, and beautiful as an orange-flower; but I have seen no roses equal to those at Lichfield, where on one tree I recollect counting eighty-four within my own reach; it grew against the house of Doctor Darwin.  Such a profusion of sweets made me enquire yesterday morning for some scented pomatum, and they brought me accordingly one pot impelling strong of garden mint, the other of rue and tansy.