As their exhibition did not please our party, notwithstanding its singularity, we went but once to the theatre, except when a Festa di Ballo was advertised to begin at eleven o’clock one night, but detained the company waiting on its stairs for two hours at least beyond the time: for my own part I was better amused _outside_ the doors, than _in_. Masquerades can of themselves give very little pleasure except when they are new things. What was most my delight and wonder to observe, was the sight of perhaps two hundred people of different ranks, all in my mind strangely ill-treated by a nobleman; who having a private supper in the room, prevented their entrance who paid for admission; all mortified, all crowded together in an inconvenient place; all suffering much from heat, and more from disappointment; yet all in perfect good humour with each other, and with the gentleman who detained in longing and ardent, but not impatiently-expressed expectation, such a number of _Romans_: who, as I could not avoid remarking, certainly deserve to rule over all the world once more, if, as we often read in history, _command_ is to be best learned from the practice of _obedience_.
The masquerade was carried on when we had once begun it, with more taste and elegance here, than either at Naples or Milan; so it was at Florence, I remember; more dresses of contrivance and fancy being produced. We had a very pretty device last night, of a man who pretended to carry statues about as if for sale: the gentlemen and ladies who personated the figures were incomparable from the choice of attitudes, and skill in colouring; but _il carnovale è morto_, as the women of quality told us last night from their coaches, in which they carried little transparent lanthorns of a round form, red, blue, green, &c. to help forward the shine; and these they throw at each other as they did sugar plums in the other towns, while the millions of small thin bougie candles held in every hand, and stuck up at every balcony, make the _Strada del Popolo_ as light as day, and produce a wonderfully pretty effect, gay, natural, and pleasing.
The unstudied hilarity of Italians is very rejoicing to the heart, from one’s consciousness that it is the result of cheerfulness really felt, not a mere incentive to happiness hoped for. The death of Carnovale, who was carried to his grave with so many candles suddenly extinguished at twelve o’clock last night, has restored us to a tranquil possession of ourselves, and to an opportunity of examining the beauties of nature and art that surround one.