Antoinette has spoiled me for Judith's cook's cookery. I
breathed a little sigh of content and summoned Stenson to inform
him that I would dine at home.

A great package of books from a second-hand bookseller arrived
during dinner. Among them were the nine volumes of Pietro
Gianone's _Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli_, a copy of which I
ought to have possessed long ago. It is dedicated to the "Most
Puissant and Felicitous Prince Charles VI, the Great, by God
crowned Emperor of the Romans, King of Germany, Spain, Naples,
Hungary, Bohemia, Sicily, _etcetera_." Is there a living soul in
God's universe who has a spark of admiration for this most
puissant and most felicitous monarch crowned by God Emperor and
King of the greater part of Europe (and docked of most of his
pretensions by the Treaty of Utrecht)? We only remember the
forcible-feeble person by his Pragmatic Sanction, and otherwise
his personality has left in history not the remotest trace. And
yet, on the 12th February, 1723, a profoundly erudite, subtle,
and picturesque historian grovels before the man and subscribes
himself "Of your Holy Caesarean and Catholic Majesty the most
humble and most devoted and most obsequious vassal and slave
Pietro Gianone." What ruthless judgments posterity passes on
once enormous reputations! In Gianone's admirable introduction
we hear of "_il celebre Arthur Duck, il quale oltro a' con
confini della sua Inghilterra volle in altri a piu lontani Paesi
andav rintracciando l'uso a l'autorita delle romane leggi ne'
nuovi domini de' Principi cristiani; e di quelle di ciascheduna
Nazione volle ancora aver conto: le ricerco nella vicina Scozia,
e nell' Ibernia; trapasso nella Francia, e nella Spagna; in
Germania, in Italia, a nel nostro Regno ancora: si stese in oltre