Black, but such as in esteem
    Prince Memnon’s sister might beseem;
    With sable stole of cypress lawn,
    O’er their decent shoulders drawn.

I never saw a spectacle so stately, so solemn a show in my life before, and was much less tired of the long continued march, than were my Roman Catholic companions.

Our inn is not a good one; the Pellegrino is engaged for the King of Naples and his train:  the place we are housed in, is full of bugs, and every odious vermin:  no wonder, surely, where such oven-like porticoes catch and retain the heat as if constructed on set purpose so to do.  The Montagnola at night was something of relief, but contrary to every other resort of company:  the less it is frequented the gayer it appears; for Nature there has been lavish of her bounties, which seem disregarded by the Bolognese, who unluckily find out that there is a burying-ground within view, though at no small distance really; and planting themselves over against that, they stand or kneel for many minutes together in whole rows, praying, as I understand, for the souls which once animated the bodies of the people whom they believe to lie interred there; all this too even at the hours dedicated to amusement.

Cardinal Buon Compagni, the legate, sent from Rome here, is gone home; and the vice-legate officiated in his place, much to the consolation of the inhabitants, who observed with little delight or gratitude his endeavours to improve their trade, or his care to maintain their privileges; while his natural disinclination to hypocritical manners, or what we so emphatically call cant, gave them an aversion to his person and dislike of his government, which he might have prevented by formality of look, and very trifling compliances.  But every thing helps to prove, that if you would please people, it must be done their way, not your own.

Here are some charming manufactures in this town, and I fear it requires much self-denial in an Englishwoman not to long at least for the fine crapes, tiffanies, &c. which might here be bought I know not how cheap, and would make one so happy in London or at Bath.  But these Customhouse officers! these rats de cave, as the French comically call them, will not let a ribbon pass.  Such is the restless jealousy of little states, and such their unremitted attention to keep the goods made in one place out of the gates of another.  Few things upon a journey contribute to torment and disgust one more than the teasing enquiries at the door of every city, who one is, what one’s name is? what one’s rank in life or employment is; that so all may be written down and carried to the chief magistrate for his information, who immediately dispatches a proper person to examine whether you gave in a true report; where you lodge, why you came, how long you mean to stay; with twenty more inquisitive speeches, which to a subject of more liberal governments must necessarily appear impertinent as frivolous, and make all my hopes of bringing home the most trifling presents for a friend abortive.  So there is an end of that felicity, and we must sit like the girl at the fair, described by Gay,