We left Florence in W----’s carriage, an excellent bachelor-like vehicle, on as cold a noon-tide as one often meets with in New York, even north of the highlands. These Apennines, which form a magnificent backbone for Italy, give the country a great diversity of climate, serving as a wall to heat it in summer, and as repositories of snow to cool it in winter. We were closely curtained and had the glasses up, and went _ventre terre_ over the paved roads, and yet had great difficulty in keeping ourselves warm. The first halt was at Pistoja, a town of some size, in which we amused ourselves for half an hour in looking at a church or two, as well as at some pictures. Taking a little refreshment, we proceeded at the old pace, and drove into the gate of Lucca, just as night had set in. Shivering with cold, for this little capital is in the heart of the mountains, we made our way into a room, and only began to recover the natural hue of our skins, when a dozen cones of the pine, well filled with resin, were in a bright blaze. These and a plentiful supply of faggots brought back the congealed vitality, whose current had almost frozen. A good supper and good beds reconciled us to life. We were up betimes, and went forth to explore Lucca. The town stands on a plain, a mountain basin, and is walled in a semi-modern fashion. If good for nothing in the way of defence, the ramparts make an excellent promenade. We visited the churches and pictures as usual, and then took a fancy to examine the palace, a long, unornamented edifice in the heart of the place. The duke is travelling, and, pretty much as a matter of course, is out of his own dominions, which, though one of the most populous countries of Europe, possessing three hundred and thirty souls to the square mile, has not one hundred and fifty thousand people. When it is remembered that a large portion of even this small territory is mountain and nearly uninhabited gorges, you may form some notion of the manner in which the little plain itself is peopled. The town has only twenty-two thousand souls; but as we walked on the ramparts and overlooked the adjacent country, it seemed alive with peasants of both sexes, labouring in the fields. They resembled pigeons gleaning a stubble, literally forming lines of twenty or thirty, working with hoes. Indeed the agriculture was gardening. Lucca was a republic, down to the period of the French revolution, about which time it was given to his sister Eliza by Napoleon, as a duchy. I believe the palace is owing to her taste, and to the expenditure of an imperial princess. We found it Parisian in style and arrangement, and in these particulars, I thought, superior even to Windsor. Nature has fitted the French to excel in mantua-making, upholstery, and philosophy.