LETTER SECOND.

PISA, July, 8

MY DEAR

WHAT a strange contrast does this dull ancient ruinous city present to the active, animated, and populous towns of Great Britian. Pisa, which once could boast of a population of one hundred and fifty thousand, is now reduced to fifteen; the donkeys browse on the grass on every street, and the trade and opulence it once enjoyed have taken wings and flown to the busy port of Leghorn. The greater part of the houses are empty and crumbling to ruins, while many fine palaces of elegant architecture, with polished marble fronts, once the abode of taste, wealth, and splendour, are now deserted, or only occupied in a corner, by a nobility humbled and empoverished by a long train of division, petty warfare, invasion, contribution, and confiscation. Still, many of them are proprietors of a great extent

with true English liberality, to give the Pole a dollar per day for the privilege I enjoy of living with him in this ruinous mansion, which I now begin to think is sufficient to support nearly the whole establishment, so cheap is everything in this quarter. We have a cook-whose face reminds me ever of a sick monkey -whom a Polish Prince dropped en passant, when so drunk that he could not be removed; and as Thadeus had saved a trifle in the service of the grandee, he has remained here ever since with his countryman on a small wage, it being understood that after the dinner is cooked his work is over for the day, and he is at liberty to loiter about the old city and visit his numerous cronies, from whence he regularly returns at night, as the sailors say, three sheets in the wind, and occasionally even half-seas-over. This chef de cuisine is a funny fellow, and quite an adept in that sublime art on which a Roman Senator did not conceive it derogatory to his dignity to write a treatise, and of which a man of giant mind, the great Dr. Johnson himself, often intended to give to the world his sentiments, superior knowledge, and science. There is also a sort of housemaid in the establishment, a very fine-looking contadina, called Nina, who has a frankness and affability to strangers extremely pleasing, and which, by-the-bye, is always well received on the continent, where the manner of

treating inferiors is not so aristocratic as with us. Servants here consider it only common civility to smile and address you, courtesying or bowing with a "buon giorno" or a "buona sera." At table, they often make a remark in a polite respectful way, and even attempt to amuse you a little if alone, or the party small, by narrating any little bit of news they may have heard. It is only justice to acknowledge that they are much more temperate, polite, and civilised than the same class in England, though comparatively idle, being forced to loose two or three days in every week, in observing Feste and Mezzofeste, by the absurd requirements of a religion of forms. Nina, our contadina, I observe, generally enters the saloon after dinner to inquire if anything is wanted, and remains a short time conversing in Italian with her master. The vivacity, ease, and grace of her manner is quite characteristic. The dish of chit-chat she serves up for his amusement is evidently seasoned with his favourite sauce, for she knows he hates the priests, and is rendered very amusing from her minute acquaintance with their character and ways. I mention the following little anecdotes, though trifling, on account of their being characteristic of the country. Just yesterday she began, with a courtesy, to say, "Signor Cazimiro, you know that-galant uomo-honest, excellent man,

the priest, who lives round the corner with his cousin, who, ten years ago, was the prettiest woman in Pisa. He is a holy man-I know him well, for is he not my own confessor? and a kind man, for you remember how he came here, all on my account as he knows you are not of the church-read a long Latin prayer, and sprinkled the whole house (which we had thoroughly swept and garnished) with holy water. His niece, who you know, is a beautiful girl of seventeen, having lived with him and her aunt from infancy, has been very ill, being threatened, they say, with dropsy; so the holy man has removed her just yesterday, to Poggi Bonso, where there is a woman celebrated for the cure of such complaints, and it is expected that under ber treatment the bella Fanciulla will soon recover." The Pole laid down his cigar that he might laugh more heartily; and, when he had recovered from the fit, addressing me in French, gave me in a most amusing style his sentiments regarding the circumstances, connection, and character of the parties. Nina then told him another little anecdote of an old priest of her acquaintance, who was very blind, and is now appointed by the Archbishop to sit in the Cathedral hard by, in a little booth, with a grating on the right hand communicating with another in which

people sit down to confess themselves to him. Yesterday, he tells me, said she, some one entered this confessional, and began very mournfully to acknowledge a numerous catalogue of sins. The voice was clear and high, but the peccadillos did not seem of a kind usually confessed by women; and the holy man being puzzled, before awarding the pennance, thought it necessary to address a few cross questions to the culprit. "Cosa siete?" what are you? said the priest. "Siete ragazza?" are you a girl? "No, Padre," was the reply. "Siete donna?" are you a married woman? "Padre, no." "Cosa diavolo siete dunque?" what then, in the name of wonder, are you? "Son Soprano Padre." It was in fact the Soprano singer from the opera at Florence; and the old priest having heard of the handsome sums he acquired by his professional efforts, imposed upon him fifteen masses and a heavy limosina. This little anecdote, so characteristic of the country, given by the contadina with that horrid nasal squeak by which the poor soprani are distinguished in speaking, has served my friend as food for a hearty laugh for some days past.

There is still another domestic in this house-a Hungarian-formerly a grenadier in the Austrian service, and standing nearly seven feet high. He

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