from affectation, is a choice comfort: the Lombards possess the skill to
please you without feigning; and so artless are their manners, you
cannot even suspect them of insincerity. They have, perhaps for that
very reason, few comedies, and fewer novels among them: for the worst of
every man's character is already well known to the rest; but be his
conduct what it will, the heart is commonly right enough--_il luon cuor
Lombardo_ is famed throughout all Italy, and nothing can become
proverbial without an excellent reason. Little opportunity is therefore
given to writers who carry the dark lanthorn of life into its deepest
recesses--unwind the hidden wickedness of a Maskwell or a Monkton,
develope the folds of vice, and spy out the internal worthlessness of
apparent virtue; which from these discerning eyes cannot be cloked even
by that early-taught affectation which renders it a real ingenuity to
discover, if in a highly polished capital a man or woman has or has not
good parts or principles--so completely are the first overlaid with
literature, and the last perverted by refinement.

* * * * *

April 2, 1785.

The cold weather continues still, and we have heavy snows; but so
admirable is the police of this well-regulated town, that when
over-night it has fallen to the height of four feet, no very uncommon
occurrence, no one can see in the morning that even a flake has been
there, so completely do the poor and the prisoners rid us of it all, by
throwing immense loads of it into a navigable canal that runs quite
round the city, and carries every nuisance with it clearly away--so that
no inconveniencies can arise.