Here nobody laughs, nor nobody stares, nor wonders that their
valet speaks just as good language, or utters as well-turned sentences
as themselves. Their cold answer to my amazement is as comical as the
fellow's fine style--_e battizzato_[Footnote: He has been baptized.],
say they, _come noi altri_[Footnote: As well as we.]. But we are called
away to hear the fair Fantastici, a young woman who makes improviso
verses, and sings them, as they tell me, with infinite learning and
taste. She is successor to the celebrated Corilla, who no longer
exhibits the power she once held without a rival: yet to _her_
conversations every one still strives for admittance, though she is now
ill, and old, and hoarse with repeated colds. She spares, however, now
by no labour or fatigue to obtain and keep that superiority and
admiration which one day perhaps gave her almost equal trouble to
receive and to repay. But who can bear to lay their laurels by? Corilla
is gay by nature, and witty, if I may say so, by habit; replete with
fancy, and powerful to combine images apparently distant. Mankind is at
last more just to people of talents than is universally allowed, I
think. Corilla, without pretensions either to immaculate character (in
the English sense), deep erudition, or high birth, which an Italian
esteems above all earthly things, has so made her way in the world, that
all the nobility of both sexes crowd to her house; that no Prince passes
through Florence without waiting on Corilla; that the Capitol will long
recollect her being crowned there, and that many sovereigns have not
only sought her company, but have been obliged to put up with slights
from her independent spirit, and from her airy, rather than haughty
behaviour.
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