Italians seem to me to have no feeling of cold; they open the
casements--for windows we have none (now in winter), and cry, _che bel
freschetto_![Footnote: What a fresh breeze!] while I am starving
outright. If there is a flash of a few faggots in the chimney that just
scorches one a little, no lady goes near it, but sits at the other end
of a high-roofed room, the wind whistling round her ears, and her feet
upon a perforated brass box, filled with wood embers, which the
_cavalier fervente_ pulls out from time to time, and replenishes with
hotter ashes raked out from between the andirons. How sitting with these
fumes under their petticoats improves their beauty of complexion I know
not; certain it is, they pity _us_ exceedingly for our manner of
managing ourselves, and enquire of their countrymen who have lived here
a-while, how their health endured the burning _fossils_ in the chambers
at London. I have heard two or three Italians say, _vorrei anch' io
veder quell' Inghilterra, ma questo carbone fossile_![Footnote: I would
go see this same England myself I think, but that fuel made of minerals
frights me!] To church, however, and to the theatre, ladies have a great
green velvet bag carried for them, adorned with gold tassels, and lined
with fur, to keep their feet from freezing, as carpets are not in use
here. Poor women run about the streets with a little earthen pipkin
hanging on their arm, filled with fire, even if they are sent on an
errand; while men of all ranks walk wrapped up in an odd sort of white
riding coat, not buttoned together, but folded round their body after
the fashion of the old Roman dress that one has seen in statues, and
this they call _Gaban_, retaining many Spanish words since the time that
they were under Spanish government. _Buscar_, to seek, is quite familiar
here as at Madrid, and instead of Ragazzo, I have heard the Milanese say
_Mozzo_ di Stalla, which is originally a Castilian word I believe, and
spelt by them with the _c con cedilla_, Moço. They have likewise Latin
phrases oddly mingled among their own: a gentleman said yesterday, that