ABSTRACT
In 1785, a few English of both sexes, * whom chance had jumbled together at Florence, took a fancy to while away their time in scribbling high-flown panegyrics on themselves, and complimentary ‘canzonettas’ on two or three Italians, † who understood too little of the language in which they were written, to be disgusted with them. In this there was not much harm; nor, indeed, much good: but, as folly is progressive, they soon wrought themselves into an opinion that the fine things were really deserved, which they mutually said and sung of each other.
