time, and replenishes with hotter ashes raked out from between the andirons.  How sitting with these fumes under their petticoats improves their beauty of complexion I know not; certain it is, they pity us exceedingly for our manner of managing ourselves, and enquire of their countrymen who have lived here a-while, how their health endured the burning fossils in the chambers at London.  I have heard two or three Italians say, vorrei anch’ io veder quell’ Inghilterra, ma questo carbone fossile![Footnote:  I would go see this same England myself I think, but that fuel made of minerals frights me!] To church, however, and to the theatre, ladies have a great green velvet bag carried for them, adorned with gold tassels, and lined with fur, to keep their feet from freezing, as carpets are not in use here.  Poor women run about the streets with a little earthen pipkin hanging on their arm, filled with fire, even if they are sent on an errand; while men of all ranks walk wrapped up in an odd sort of white riding coat, not buttoned together, but folded round their body after the fashion of the old Roman dress that one has seen in statues, and this they call Gaban, retaining many Spanish words since the time that they were under Spanish government. Buscar, to seek, is quite familiar here as at Madrid, and instead of Ragazzo, I have heard the Milanese say Mozzo di Stalla, which is originally a Castilian word I believe, and spelt by them with the c con cedilla, Moco.  They have likewise Latin phrases oddly mingled among their own:  a gentleman said yesterday, that he was going to Casa Sororis, to his sister’s; and the strange word Minga, which meets one at every turn, is corrupted, I believe, from Mica, a crumb. Piaz minga, I have not a crumb of pleasure in it, &c.

The uniformity of dress here pleases the eye, and their custom of going veiled to church, and always without a hat, which they consider as profanation of the temple as they call it, delights me much; it has an air of decency in the individuals, of general respect for the place, and of a resolution not to let external images intrude on devout thoughts.  The hanging churches, and even public pillars, set up in the streets or squares for purposes of adoration, with black, when any person of consequence dies, displeases me more; it is so very dismal, so paltry a piece of pride and expiring vanity, and so dirty a custom, calling bugs and spiders, and all manner of vermin about one so in those black trappings, it is terrible; but if they remind us of our end, and set us about preparing for it, the benefit is greater than the evil.