I was observing that restraint was necessary to man; I have now learned
a notion that noise is necessary too. The clatter made here in the
Piazza del Duomo, where you sit in your carriage at a coffee-house door,
and chat with your friends according to Italian custom, while _one_
eats ice, and _another_ calls for lemonade, to while away the time after
dinner, the noise made then and there, I say, is beyond endurance.
Our Florentines have nothing on earth to do; yet a dozen fellows crying
_ciambelli_, little cakes, about the square, assisted by beggars, who
lie upon the church steps, and pray or rather promise to pray as loud as
their lungs will let them, for the _anime sante di purgatorio_[Footnote:
Holy souls in purgatory.]; ballad-singers meantime endeavouring to drown
these clamours in their own, and gentlemen's servants disputing at the
doors, whose master shall be first served; ripping up the pedigrees of
each to prove superior claims for a biscuit or macaroon; do make such an
intolerable clatter among them, that one cannot, for one's life, hear
one another speak: and I did say just now, that it were as good live at
Brest or Portsmouth when the rival fleets were fitting out, as here;
where real tranquillity subsists under a bustle merely imaginary.
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