my attention. Peter, said I, to my own man, as we came out, _chi è
quella dama? who is that lady? Non è dama_, replies the fellow,
contemptuously smiling at my simplicity--_she is no lady_. I thought
she might be somebody's kept mistress, and asked him whose? _Dio ne
liberi_, returns Peter, in a kinder accent--for there _heart_ came in,
and he would not injure her character--God forbid: _è moglie d'un ricco
banchiere_--she is a rich banker's wife. You may see, added he, that she
is no lady if you look--the servants carry no velvet stool for her to
kneel upon, and they have no coat armour in the lace to their liveries:
_she_ a lady! repeated he again with infinite contempt.

I am told that the Arch-duke is very desirous to close this breach of
distinction, and to draw merchants and traders with their wives up into
higher notice than they were wont to remain in. I do not _think_ he will
by that means conciliate the affection of any rank. The prejudices in
favour of nobility are too strong to be shaken here, much less rooted
out so: the very servants would rather starve in the house of a man of
family, than eat after a person of inferior quality, whom they consider
as their equal, and almost treat him as such to his face. Shall we then
be able to refuse our particular veneration to those characters of high
rank here, who add the charm of a cultivated mind to that situation
which, united even with ignorance, would ensure them respect? When
scholarship is found among the great in Italy, it has the additional
merit of having grown up in their own bosoms, without encouragement from
emulation, or the least interested motive. His companions do not think
much the more of him--for _that_ kind of superiority. I suppose, says a
friend of his, he must be fond of study; for _chi pensa di una maniera,
chi pensa d' un altra, per me sono stato sempre ignorantissimo_[I].

[Footnote I: One man is of one mind, another of another: I was always a