ignorant as to call Brutus an effeminate, because they find him in chains with a slave, and forced to work with the last of men! Travelers, and Mr. Headley blame italians, because they find under that sky, worthy of a better fortune, beggars, and wretches “selling their rich ornaments that were the objects of their ancestors’ affection, and veneration, like the trinkets of a toy shop.” But, you, spoiled children of more happy governments, you should not, at least, laugh at our nakedness!—And the pretty piedemontese who gave you a fall, Mr. Headley, because her necessity forced her to stand before you with a little pewter dish in her hand, most humbly asking for a few sous, rather as charity, than as a recompense of her mountain songs; instead of throwing her the coppers, and thinking her inspiration nothing but a love of money, your good, american heart should have prompted a feeling, if not mixed with tears, at least, with a smile of sympathy, which would have been, by far, more pleasing to an italian heart, than your few coppers. That poor delicate female was singing not for the love of money, a love which wrongs rather too much this country of America. She charmed you for the urgent necessity of hunger! And who knows that the loaf of bread she bought with your few coppers, had not been mixed with her innocent and bitter tears? And that hunger is originated from the continual plunders which the despotical foreign powers in Italy, and surrounding Italy, are unlawfully forcing on us to maintain an exorbitant army, with which to distress us. Who knows, that the father of the poor piedmontese had not been hanged for having claimed the rights of man, the very rights to which God did create us?

The other ragged woman to whom your american navy taught how to say: ‘God damn’ without knowing the meaning of it, would prove, that if such americans are found in Italy, passing their christian time with such women, your americans must have looseness of morals as much as my italians. But, as I think the cursing women in Broadway cannot take off the merit of the american ladies, you have no right to think that my mother, and sisters are not ladies! Sins are committed in every part of this world; but, as we know there are virtuous people, we should exclude the greater number, or, at least, think ourselves no better. We are all fine nations, indeed, in this pretended christian world! But, since we cannot fling the first stone, we have no right to laugh at the faults of our neighbor, nor to tell, that our neighbor has not our virtues, or morals.

Mr. Headley has now already passed the half of his time he spent in Italy, which is to say, three months: and though during these three months, he never went out of Genoa, he says that nothing is more stupid than an italian soiree. Had he said a genoese soiree, Mr. Headley would have only offended the citizens of Genoa, who gave him hospitality: but, to offend the whole of Italy, who had never had the pleasure of seeing him, nor he the displeasure of seeing their stupidity, it is what we call a gratuitous offense.—Not pleased therefore, in finding them excessively stupid, he believes that ten dollars would pay, each evening, all the expenses the governor is at, in the entertainment!—Were I saying the same against the kind americans who honored me, every one would be right in thinking, that I must have accepted their invitations, rather for their refreshments than for the pleasure of their conversation. And here, I must copy Mr. Headley’s outline of the italian soirees:—“Splendid rooms, brilliantly illuminated, any quantity of nobility—dancing, waltzing, promenading, ice creams, hot punch,” no hot corn, Mr. Headley? “and late hours make up the description. It is gay, and brilliant, but without force or wit.” And here, benevolent reader, a stranger, who does not know the italian language, dares to say of having found no wit! And, because the kind italians had no other way to please the happy gentleman of this New World, seeing he could not understand their language, they gave him dancing, waltzing, promenading, ice cream and hot punch: and because these things could not amount to ten dollars, he blames, them because the scanty refreshments had not been supplied by wit, with which nature did not favor those poor italian brains! The american lady, I have already quoted, says in her Alida: “Superfluous refinements in eating, and drinking are among the enjoyments least important to a rational being. Do not let us poison a feast to a neighbor, by the mortifying reflection that he can make no similar return. An evil spirit of competition is thus awakened, and all true hospitality destroyed.”

While Mr. Headley claims as an american, a beautiful english lady, whose charms had been transmitted from her american mother, he sadly writes of not having found in Italy not a really pretty woman; and the only one he met, who was called the belle of the city, it was, what he would term, of the doll kind. And mind here, benevolent reader, that the Italy of Mr. Headley, is nothing else but the city of Genoa! He has not yet gone out of it.

To define beauty, I have nothing else to say, that a beauty is the beauty of different men, who have different sight, and different feeling. The artist will always draw it as he feels it himself. But, he who pretends to settle rules on beauty, must needs not know what beauty is. The beauty of one’s eyes cannot be the beauty of another, though rules we find settled by different nations. The Venus of De Medici is a greek beauty, whom a greek would love in preference to any italian, english, french, chinese, or indian beauty. But the chinese will always prefer the chinese, as well as the indian the wild one. He who compares the music of Hyden or Mozart, with the music of Rossini or Bellini, shows too plainly, he does not understand the art. He who wishes to see pretty women, has only to step into the car, and in a few hours he will see in Baltimore a great many. But, if he delays five or six years longer, he might meet there the ugliest in the world, so the glory of the world is transient. Once, in passing through a small city of France, all the women I saw in that place were so pretty, that I thought to have fallen into the garden of Armida. Still, though we know that every dog has its happy days, there are travelers who did not pass but six months in Italy, running through ten cities of that populous country, who, like Mr. Headley, asserted not to have seen one single pretty italian lady. I did pass myself more than six months in one single city of America, without having met one pretty lady, when to my astonishment, I met in that very city, on a public walk, beauties as cheerful as the sun. To bless this being of war, called man, nature did scatter beauties in every part of this singular planet.

However, though Mr. Headley would never consent with the plurality of travelers, who praised the black-eyed beauties of Italy, after having resided in the city of Genoa nearly five months, passed one day in Civita Vecchia, only calculating how long it would take him to get out of it, seen from a steamboat “villainous towns” on the shores from Genoa to Naples, the last month which he spent in this last city, where his turn through Italy closes, caused him to change a little the language he used before: “It is not the partiality one naturally feels for his country women, that governs me,” says Mr. Headley in his twenty first letter; “when I say, that the beautiful women with us stand to them in the proportion of five to one.” And at the close of his pamphlet he added: “A beautiful eye, and eyebrow are more frequently met here than at home. The brow is peculiarly beautiful—not merely from its regularity, but singular flexibility. It will laugh of itself, and the