The road from Padua hither is a vile one; one can scarcely make twenty
miles a-day in any part of the Venetian state. Its senators, accustomed
to water carriage, have little care for us who go by land. The Palanzuola
way is worse however, and I am glad once more to see sweet Verona.
Petruchio and Catharine might easily have met with all the adventures
related by Grumio on their journey thither, but when once arrived she
should have been contented. This city is as lovely as ever, more so than
it was last April twelvemonth, when the spring was sullen and backward;
every hill now glows with the gay produce of summer, and every valley
smiles with plenty expected or pleasure possessed. The antiquities
however look less respectable than when I left them; no amphitheatre
will do after the Roman Colossæum, and our triumphal arch here looked
so pitiful, I wondered what was come to it. So must it always happen to
the performances of art, which we compare one against another, and find
that as man made the best of them, so some man may in some moment make a
better still: but the productions of nature are the works of God; we can
only compare them with other things done by the same Almighty Master,
whose power is equally discernible in all, from the fly’s antennæ to
the elephant’s proboscis. Bozza’s collection gave birth to this last
sentence; the farther one goes the more astonishing grows his musæum, the
neglect of which is sure no credit to the present age. I find his cabinet
much fuller than I left it, and adorned with many new specimens from the
southern seas, besides flying-fish innumerable, beautifully preserved,
and one predaceous creature caught in the very act of gorging his prey,
a proof of their destruction being instant as that of the dwellers in
Pompeia, who had their dinners dished when the eruption overwhelmed them.
We took leave of our learned friends here with concern, but hope to
see them again, and tread the stucco floors so prettily mottled and
variegated, they look like the cold mock turtle soup exactly, which
London pastry-cooks keep in their shops, ready for immediate use.
What an odd thing is custom! here is weather to fry one in, yet
after exercise, and in a state of the most violent perspiration, no
consequences follow the use of iced beverages, except the sense of
pleasure resulting from them at the moment. Should a Bath belle indulge
in such luxury, after dancing down forty couple at Mr. Tyson’s ball,
we should expect to hear next day of her surfeit at least, if not of
her sudden death. Lying-in ladies take the same liberty with _their_
constitutions, and _say_ that no harm comes of it; and when I tell them
how differently we manage in England, cry, “_mi pare che dev’essere
schiavitù grande in quel paese della benedetta libertà_[37].” Fine
muslin linen nicely got up is however, say they, one of the things to be
produced only in Great Britain, and much do our Italian ladies admire it,
though they look very charmingly with much less trouble taken. I lent
one lady at some place, I remember, my maid, to shew her, as she so much
wished it, how the operation of clear-starching was performed; but as
soon as it began, she laughed at the superfluous fatigue, as she called
it; and her servants crossed themselves in every corner of the room,
with wonder that such niceties should be required.--Well they might! for
I caught a great tall fellow ironing his lady’s best neck-handkerchief
with the warming-pan here at Padua very quietly; and she was a woman of
quality too, and looked as lovely, when the toilette was once performed,
as if much more attention had been bestowed upon it.