George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[90] there were great quantities of his letters on public affairs, and many to his friends, in the archives of the state here, those on public affairs being generally in cipher; that they were almost all written with his own hand; and that Lorenzo was so laborious in his habits, that he had found seventeen such, written in a single day, most of them long, and some important. Of the poetry, he said he had published all he could find, except such portions as were indelicate, which he felt it a duty to suppress; and he ended by saying he should send me a copy of it, having still, he added, two or three left. The whole literary credit of the work he attributed to the Abbe Fiacchi,¹ and said he was himself only a collaborator, directed how it should be printed, and that one hundred and fifty copies should be struck off. He intended, after this, to have published the letters of Lorenzo; but just at that moment he came to the government, by the death of his father, and so the project has been given up.

While this conversation was going on the Grand Duchess sent to him twice, to say it was time to go to dinner with Prince Max, . . . . but it was plain he liked to talk about Lorenzo, and he had his talk out. At last, at the end of an hour, he dismissed me in the usual form, and I went to the grounds behind the chateau, where Mrs. T. had been sketching . . . . . Just as we were going to our carriage, the Duke came along on foot, with his secretary. He stopped an instant, and pointed out to us a little villa near, where Varchi lived, and wrote his ‘Istorie Fiorentine’; and then, as the Grand Duchess came by, he got into the carriage with her and drove off.

May 18.—We went to the gallery this morning, and after going for a short time through its principal rooms, . . . . we sat ourselves down to the collection of original drawings by Perugino, Raffaelle, etc., and had a luxurious hour over them . . . . . Afterwards we drove and climbed to San Miniato in Monte, a grand old church long since deserted, where we found old pictures and frescos in abundance, . . . . and a magnificent view of the ever-beautiful valley of the Arno, and the ever-picturesque Florence . . . . . When shall I see the like again?

We dined in the evening at the French Minister's, where everything was as tasteful and as comfortable as possible, and where we met the Belgian Minister, Count Vilain Quatorze, and his wife; the