not involved in a calamity, which, after all, is more general in other countries, as well as Italy, than it ought. Even when there is the greatest harmony and love between the husband and wife, and although each would prefer the other’s company to any other, still, such is the tyranny of fashion, they must separate every evening; he to play the cavaliero servente to another woman, and she to be led about by another man. Notwithstanding this inconveniency, the couples who are in this predicament are certainly happier than those whose affections are not centered at home. Some very loving couples lament the cruelty of this separation, yet the world in general seem to be of opinion, that a man and his wife who dine together every day, and lie together every night, may, with a proper exertion of philosophy, be able to support being asunder a few hours in the evening. The Cicisbeo, in many instances, is a poor relation or humble friend, who, not being in circumstances to support an equipage, is happy to be admitted into all the societies, and to be carried about to public diversions, as an appendage to the lady. I have known numbers of those gentlemen, whose appearance and bodily infirmities carried the clearest refutation, with respect to themselves personally, of the scandalous stories of an improper connection between cavaliero serventes and their mistresses. I never in my life saw men more happily formed, both in body and mind, for saving the reputation of the females with whom they were on a footing of intimacy. The humble and timid air which many of them betray in the presence of the ladies, and the perseverance with which they continue their services, notwithstanding the contemptuous stile in which they are often treated, is equally unlike the haughtiness natural to favoured lovers, and the indifference of men satiated with enjoyment. There are, it must be confessed, Cicisbeos of a very different stamp, whose figure and manners might be supposed more agreeable to the ladies they serve, than to their lords. I once expressed my surprise, that a particular person permitted one of this description to attend his wife. I was told, by way of solution of my difficulty, that the husband was poor, and the Cicisbeo rich. It is not in Italy only where infamous compromises of this nature take place. I have also known instances, since I have been in this country, where the characters of the ladies were so well established, as not to be shaken either in the opinion of their acquaintances or husbands, although their cavaliero serventes were in every respect agreeable and accomplished.