Yesterday morning breakfasted with Lord Normanby, who has got a house extending 200 feet in front, court, garden, and stables for about £280 a year, everything else cheap in proportion, and upon £2,000 a year a man may live luxuriously. His house was originally fitted up for the Pretender, and C. R.'s are still to be seen all over the place. Called on Lord Burghersh,[11] who was at breakfast--the table covered with manuscript music, a pianoforte, two fiddles, and a fiddler in the room. He was full of composition and getting up his opera of 'Phaedra' for to-morrow night. The Embassy is the seat of the Arts, for Lady Burghersh has received the gift of painting as if by inspiration, and she was in a brown robe in the midst of oils, and brushes, and canvas; and a model was in attendance, some part of whose person was to be introduced into a fancy piece. She copies pictures in the Gallery, and really extraordinarily well if it be true that till a year ago she had never had a brush in her hand, and that she is still quite ignorant of drawing. [11] [Lord Burghersh, afterwards Earl of Westmoreland, was then British Minister at Florence.] Went into two or three of the churches, then to the Gallery, and sat for half an hour in the Tribune, but could not work myself into a proper enthusiasm for the 'Venus,' whose head is too small and ankles too thick, but they say the more I see her the more I shall like her. I prefer the 'Wrestlers,' and the head of the 'Remontleur' is the only good _head_ I have seen, the only one with expression. 'Niobe' is fine, but I can't bear her children, except one. Then to the Casine on horseback to see the town and the world: it seems a very enjoyable place. This morning again dropped into some of the churches, after which I have always a hankering, though there is great sameness in them, but I have a childish liking for Catholic pomp. The fine things are lost amidst a heap of rubbish, but there is no lack of marble, and painting, and gilding in most of them. They are going on with the Medici Chapel, on which millions have been wasted and more is going after, for the Grand Duke is gradually finishing the work. The profusion of marble is immense, and very fine and curious if examined in detail; the precious stones are hardly seen, and when they are, not to be recognised as such. To the Pitti Palace, of which one part is under repair and not visible, but I saw most of the best pictures. I like pictures better than statues. It is a beautiful palace, and well furnished for show. Nobody knows what Vandyke was without coming here. To the Gabinetto Fisico, and saw all the wax-works, the progress of gestation, and the representation of the plague, incomparably clever and well executed. I saw nothing disgusting in the wax-works in the museum, which many people are so squeamish about.