Nearly all Cicero’s letters to Papirius Pætus contain allusions to eating and drinking, and in one he says: “It is a better thing, let me tell you, to be sick with good eating at Rome, than for want of victuals at Naples.” When he was thinking of buying Sylla’s house at Naples, he asks Pætus to take some workmen to survey it for him, saying: “If the walls and roof are in good repair, I shall perfectly well approve of the rest.” “If I can procure a house at Naples, it is my purpose to live so abstemiously that what our late sumptuary law allows for one day’s expense shall suffice me ten.” This last sentence, when coupled with that quoted from the other letter, looks rather like making a virtue of necessity. The marvel is that the Naples market is not more abundantly provided with Sorrento produce. The fruit is very good; and we all agreed we had never known the real merit of cherries until we had eaten them at Sorrento, and even better still at Capri. In our own land, in France, and even in cherry‐loving Germany, I had always considered them as a very poor fruit, unless cooked or preserved. But I entertained a very different opinion of them when I had feasted on them in the South of Italy. They are as different as the fresh oranges, picked from the tree, are from those that have been plucked while green, and have ripened in a box during a long voyage. I never cared for cherries in England. I used to believe in oranges as I found them in the fruiterers’ shops. But now they appear to me a snare and a delusion when eaten in the north. When we arrived at Sorrento, the Empress of Russia and her daughter, the grand duchess, were still there. We met them driving just as we entered the town, and of course looked eagerly at her who was so soon to become our own Duchess of Edinburgh, and were charmed with her amiable and youthful expression, and with the pretty smile with which she returned our bow. They were to leave Sorrento in a very few days. The yacht was already moored close to the cliffs, awaiting them. The empress shed tears, as the people crowded round to see her embark and wished her farewell in their own graceful way and soft language. She said she had grown to love Sorrento and its inhabitants more than she could express, and that she should always hope some day to return amongst them. The house in which Tasso was born is now converted into a hotel, much to the detriment of all poetic sentiment.