high people here express when the low ones are diverted, is
charming.--We think it vulgar to be merry when the mob is so; but if
rolling down a hill, like Greenwich, was the custom here, as with us,
all Milan would run to see the sport, and rejoice in the felicity of
their fellow-creatures. When I express my admiration of such
condescending sweetness, they reply--_è un uomo come un altro;--è
battezzato come noi_; and the like--Why he is a man of the same nature
as we: he has been christened as well as ourselves, they reply. Yet do I
not for this reason condemn the English as naturally haughty above their
continental neighbours. Our government has left so narrow a space
between the upper and under ranks of people in Great Britain--while our
charitable and truly Christian religion is still so constantly employed
in raising the depressed, by giving them means of changing their
situation, that if our persons of condition fail even for a moment to
watch their post, maintaining by dignity what they or their fathers have
acquired by merit, they are instantly and suddenly broken in upon by the
well-employed talents, or swiftly-acquired riches, of men born on the
other side the thin partition; whilst in Italy the gulph is totally
impassable, and birth alone can entitle man or woman to the society of
gentlemen and ladies. This firmly-fixed idea of subordination (which I
once heard a Venetian say, he believed must exist in heaven from one
angel to another) accounts immediately for a little conversation which I
am now going to relate.

Here were two men taken up last week, one for murdering his
fellow-servant in cold blood, while the undefended creature had the
lemonade tray in his hand going in to serve company; the other for
breaking the new lamps lately set up with intention to light this town
in the manner of the streets at Paris. "I hope," said I, "that they will
hang the murderer." "I rather hope," replied a very sensible lady who