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Florence looked most beautiful as we approached it from the south, girt with her theatre of verdant hills, and glittering in the sunshine.  All the country from Sienna to Florence is richly cultivated; diversified with neat hamlets, farms and villas.  I was more struck with the appearance of the Tuscan peasantry on my return from the Papal dominions than when we passed through the country before:  no where in Tuscany have we seen that look of abject negligent poverty, those crowds of squalid beggars which shocked us in the Ecclesiastical States.  In the towns where we stopped to change horses, we were presently surrounded by a crowd of people:  the women came out spinning, or sewing and plaiting the Leghorn hats; the children threw flowers into our barouche, the men grinned and gaped, but there was no vociferous begging, no disgusting display of physical evils, filth, and wretchedness.  The motive was merely that idle curiosity for which the Florentines in all ages have been remarked.  I remember an amusing instance which occurred when I was here in December last.  I was standing one evening in the Piazza del Gran Duca, looking at the group of the Rape of the Sabines:  in a few minutes a dozen people gathered round me, gaping at the statue, and staring at that and at me alternately, either to enjoy my admiration, or find out the cause of it:  the people came out of the neighbouring shops, and the crowd continued to increase, till at length, though infinitely amused, I was glad to make my escape.

I suffered from cold when first we arrived at Florence, owing to the change of climate, or rather to mere weakness and fatigue:  to-day I begin to doubt the possibility of outliving an Italian summer.  The blazing atmosphere which depresses the eyelids, the enervating heat, and the rich perfume of the flowers all around us, are almost too much.

April 20.—­During our stay at Florence, it has been one of my favourite occupations to go to the Gallery or the Pitti Palace, and placing my portable seat opposite to some favourite pictures, minutely study and compare the styles of the different masters.  By the style of any particular painter, I presume we mean to express the combination of two separate essentials—­first, his peculiar conception of his subject; secondly, his peculiar method of executing that conception, with regard to colouring, drawing, and what artists call handling.  The former department of style lies in the mind, and will vary according to the feelings, the temper, the personal habits, and previous education of the painter:  the latter is merely mechanical, and is technically termed the manner of a painter; it may be cold or warm, hard, dry, free, strong, tender:  as we say the cold manner of Sasso Ferrato, the warm manner of Giorgione, the hard manner of Holbein, the dry manner of Perugino, the free manner of Rubens, the strong manner of Carravaggio, and so forth; I heard an amateur once observe, that one of Morland’s Pig-sties was painted with great feeling:  all this refers merely to mechanical execution.