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

[337] admirable, and the audience decent and well behaved. Few paid so dear as I did for a place, none more, and the great body of the audience which about half filled the theatre—went in their work-day clothes, and seemed to consider it a very domestic way of spending the evening. . . . . I noticed a man and his wife, who looked like modest shopkeepers, or, perhaps, respectable mechanics, who had a little son between them, so young, that, not being able to enjoy the play, he had been permitted to bring his cat to amuse him. . . . . It was capital; genuine, popular Venetian characters, set forth in the purest and simplest Italian verse, and, as I said before, all admirably performed. Get the play; it will amuse you. . . . . I should not wonder if you read a good many of the plays, and if you do, you may always remember that they are perfectly true to Venetian life and manners, and relished for that reason by all classes of society in the North of Italy. . . . .

Addio, carissima. Off at eight to-morrow, for Firenze la bella.