So it is by those who travel a good deal; by what I have seen, every
country has so much in it to be justly complained of, that most men
finish by preferring their own.
That neither complaints nor rejoicings here at Milan, however, proceed
from affectation, is a choice comfort: the Lombards possess the skill to
please you without feigning; and so artless are their manners, you
cannot even suspect them of insincerity. They have, perhaps for that
very reason, few comedies, and fewer novels among them: for the worst of
every man's character is already well known to the rest; but be his
conduct what it will, the heart is commonly right enough--_il luon cuor
Lombardo_ is famed throughout all Italy, and nothing can become
proverbial without an excellent reason. Little opportunity is therefore
given to writers who carry the dark lanthorn of life into its deepest
recesses--unwind the hidden wickedness of a Maskwell or a Monkton,
develope the folds of vice, and spy out the internal worthlessness of
apparent virtue; which from these discerning eyes cannot be cloked even
by that early-taught affectation which renders it a real ingenuity to
discover, if in a highly polished capital a man or woman has or has not
good parts or principles--so completely are the first overlaid with
literature, and the last perverted by refinement.
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