drop. Only the next time give five piastres to the master, and
a piastre and a half to the driver; you will save five piastres
and a half, and arrive eighteen hours sooner.'"--P. 97.

M. Dumas, however, arrives at Florence without any such disagreeable
adventure as sleeping in a coach-house. He gives a pleasing description
of the Florentine people, amongst whom the spirit of commerce has died
away, but left behind a considerable share of the wealth and luxury that
sprang from it. There is little spirit of enterprise; no rivalry between
a class enriching itself and the class with whom wealth is hereditary;
the jewels that were purchased under the reign of the Medici still shine
without competitors on the promenade and at the opera. It is a people
that has made its fortune, and lives contentedly on its revenues, and on
what it gets from the stranger. "The first want of a Florentine," says
our author, "is repose; even pleasure is secondary; it costs him some
little effort to be amused. Wearied of its frequent political
convulsions, the town of the Medici aspires only to that unbroken and
enchanted slumber which fell, as the fairy tale informs us, on the
beautiful lady in the sleepy wood. No one here seems to labour, except
those who are tolling and ringing the church-bells, and they indeed
appear to have rest neither day nor night."

There are but three classes visible in Florence. The nobility--the
foreigner--and the people. The nobility, a few princely houses excepted,
spend but little, the people work but little, and it would be a marvel
how these last lived if it were not for the foreigner. Every autumn
brings them their harvest in the shape of a swarm of travellers from
England, France, or Russia, and, we may now add, America. The winter
pays for the long delicious indolence of the summer. Then the populace
lounges, with interminable leisure, in their churches, on their