[5] On a particular occasion the writer was invited to take a seat _with the critics_, in the Park Theatre. As an interlude, two dancers exhibited, one in front of a large gilded frame that had gauze in it, and the other behind it; the aim being to produce the effect of reflection. Both backs and both faces being exhibited at the same time; the writer, in his capacity of critic, felt himself bound to hiss; whereupon he was himself incontinently hissed down. What! tell a New York corps of critics, that a man looking into a glass did not see the back of his own head! The writer merited his castigation, and seizes this occasion to admit how far he was behind the Manhattanese philosophy. LETTER XI. Audience of leave with the Grand Duke.--Journey to Leghorn.--Commercial Towns and Capital.--Warehouse for Statuary.--The Port.--Voyage to Naples in a Genoese Felucca.--Elba.--A Mediterranean Quarantine.--Porto Ferrajo.--Napoleon and his House.--A Tarantula.--Island of Troas.--Cività Vecchia.--A lovely night scene off the Campagna.--The Pontine Marshes.--Gulf of Gaeta.--Bay of Naples. The time for quitting Florence having arrived, I wrote to ask an audience of leave of the royal family. The answer was favourable, the grand duke naming the following morning at the Pitti, and the grand duchess an hour a little later at the Poggio Imperiale, a palace just without the walls, and in the immediate vicinity of St. Illario. Ten was the hour at which I presented myself at the Pitti, in an ordinary morning-dress, wearing shoes instead of boots. I was shown into an ante-chamber, where I was desired to take a seat. A servant soon after passed through the room with a salver, bearing a chocolate-cup and a bit of toast, a proof that his imperial highness had just been making a light breakfast. I was then told that the grand duke would receive me. The door opened on a large room, shaped like a parallelogram, which had the appearance of a private library, or cabinet. There were tables, books, maps, drawings, and all the appliances of work. The library of the palace, however, is in another part of the edifice, and contains many thousand volumes, among which are some that are very precious, and their disposition is one of the most convenient, though not the most imposing as to show, of any library I know. The grand duke was standing alone at the upper end of a long table that was covered by some drawings and plans of the _Maremme_, a part of his territories in reclaiming which he is said to be just now much occupied. As I entered, he advanced and gave me a very civil reception. I paid my compliments, and made an offering of a book which I had caused to be printed in Florence. This he accepted with great politeness; and then he told me, in the simplest manner, that “his wife” was so ill, she could not see me that morning. I had a book for her imperial highness also, and he said it might be left at the Poggio Imperiale.