Your time, poor souls! we'll take your very money,
Female third nights shall come so thick upon ye, &c.
and every hour gives one reason to hope that Mr. Pope's glorious prophecy in favour of the Negroes will not now remain long unaccomplished, but that liberty will extend her happy influence over the world;
Till the freed Indians, in their native groves,
Reap their own fruits, and woo their sable loves.
I will not extend myself in describing the heaps of splendid ruin in which the rich chapel of St. Lorenzo now lies: since the elegant Lord Corke's letters were written, little can be said about Florence not better said by him; who has been particularly copious in describing a city which every body wishes to see copiously described.
The libraries here are exceedingly magnificent; and we were called just now to that which goes under Magliabechi's name, to hear an eulogium finely pronounced upon our circumnavigator Captain Cook; whose character has attracted the attention, and extorted the esteem of every European nation: far less was the wonder that it forced my tears; they flowed from a thousand causes: my distance from England! my pleasure in hearing an Englishman thus lamented in a language with which he had no acquaintance!
By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourn'd!
Every thing contributed to soften my heart, though not to lower my spirits. For when a Florentine asked me, how I came to cry so? I answered, in the words of their divine Mestastasio:
"Che questo pianto mio
Tutto non è dolor;
E meraviglia, e amore,
E riverenza, e speme,
Son mille affetti assieme
Tutti raccolti al cor."
'Tis not grief alone, or fear,
Swells the heart, or prompts the tear;
Reverence, wonder, hope, and joy,
Thousand thoughts my soul employ,
Struggling images, which less
Than falling tears can ne'er express.
Giannetti, who pronounced the panegyric, is the justly-celebrated improvisatore so famous for making Latin verses impromptu, as others do Italian ones: the speech has been translated into English by Mr. Merry, with whom I had the honour here first to make acquaintance, having met him at Mr. Greatheed's, who is our fellow-lodger, and with whom and his amiable family the time passes in reciprocations of confidential friendship and mutual esteem.