The manners of the
men here are certainly pleasing to a very eminent degree, and in their
conversation there is a mixture, not unfrequent too, of classical
allusions, which strike one with a sort of literary pleasure I cannot
easily describe. Yet is there no pedantry in their use of expressions,
which with us would be laughable or liable to censure: but Roman notions
here are not quite extinct; and even the house-maid, or _donna di gros_,
as they call her, swears by _Diana_ so comically, there is no telling.
They christen their boys _Fabius_, their daughters _Claudia_, very
commonly. When they mention a thing known, as we say, to _Tom o'Styles
and John o'Nokes_, they use the words, _Tizio and Sempronio_. A lady
tells me, she was at a loss about the dance yesterday evening, because
she had not been instructed in the _programma_; and a gentleman,
talking of the pleasures he enjoyed supping last night at a friend's
house, exclaims, _Eramo pur jeri sera in Appolline[G]!_ alluding to
Lucullus's entertainment given to Pompey and Cicero, as I remember, in
the chamber of Apollo. But here is enough of this--more of it, in their
own pretty phrase, _seccarebbe pur Nettunno_[H]. It was long ago that
Ausonius said of them more than I can say, and Mr.
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