Diary of Mary Addison, 1772.

who grudge or cannot afford to pay one of those necessary men
that you may have a day or an hour for a mere trifle will get
their husbands to put on the old livery coat and follow them 15

18 A fine day a Mr Meredith's family came to Florence and took
an appartment in the same house with us for Mr Hatfield
has three houses all in the same street a S[I]r Tho[ma]s and Lady
Hesket is in one of them at present. In the evening we went
to the Opera of Contessina here they don't change their pieces
above two or three times in a season but give new dances now
and then and the scene to the new dance to night was very
pretty it represented a temple and the pillars appeard to
to be all Turks. In the inside was a camp or tent where upon
a cushion sat an old captive Turk. Then the dancers enter and
seem to dance to divert his melancholly their drapes are fine &
prettily fancy'd and the figure of their dance very pretty indeed 16

19 A fine day Mrs Jameson and we drank tea with Mrs Hatfield then
went to the Mercers no great choice but the lutestrings are soft
and not dear being 5 pauls [paolo: an obsolete Italian silver coin worth about 5p sterling] a braccia the latter being a good half Ell
and the value of the former in English Money half a crown. 15

20 A charming day we drank tea with Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Bran
then took a walk out of town close by the river side then came
home by the tower and the gate being lock'd we paid to get it 15

21 A fine day I went with Mrs Jameson to Mrs Hatfields country house
from the Belvedere or Lanthorn at top we had a fine view of Florence
and on the rising Hills on the other side stands the remains of Fic-
sole to it Florence owes its Original below it is Pratolina a large
seat belonging to the Grand Duke, as we came home in the dusk
of the Evening there was a quantity of little fire flys flying
about the hedges and as they rest upon the corn or trees or

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