Foreigners would better appreciate the Italian character if they better understood the usages of the country. A nation divided like this, conquered as this has been, and lying, as it now does, notoriously at the mercy of any powerful invader, loses the estimation that is due to numbers. The stranger regards the people as unworthy of possessing distinctive traits, and obtrudes his own habits on them, coarsely and, too often, insolently. This, in part, is submitted to, from necessity; but mutual ill-will and distrust are the consequences. The vulgar-minded Englishman talks of the “damned Italians,” and the vulgar-minded American, quite in rule, imitates his great model, though neither has, probably, any knowledge of the people beyond that which he has obtained in inns, and in the carriages of the _vetturini_. In grace of mind, in a love, and even in a knowledge of the arts, a large portion of the common Italians are as much superior to the Anglo-Saxon race as civilization is superior to barbarism. We deride their religious superstitions; but we overlook the exaggerations, uncharitableness, and ferocity of our own fanaticism. Of the two, I firmly believe a Divine Omniscience finds less to condemn in the former. I do not know any peasantry in which there is more ingenuousness, with less of rusticity and vulgarity than that of Tuscany. The society of Italy, which is but another word for the nobles of the country, so far as I have seen it, has the general European character, modified a little by position. They have a general acquaintance with literature, without being often learned; and there is a grace about their minds, derived from the constant practice of contemplating the miracles of art, that is rather peculiar to them. An Italian gentleman is more gracious than an Englishman, and less artificial than a Frenchman. Indeed, I have often thought that in these particulars he is the nearest a true standard of any gentleman of Europe. There is a sincerity in this class, also, that took me by surprise; a simplicity of mind rather than of manner, that is not common on the other side of the Alps. Notwithstanding what has been said and written about _les esprits fins_, I question if the trait can be properly imputed to the general Italian character. After all this, however, I freely admit the limited nature of my own observation, and you will not attach to these opinions more value than they deserve; still, they merit more attention than the loose notions on the same subject that have been thrown before the world, unreflectingly and ignorantly, by most of our travellers.