Peter Elmsley to his sister-in-law [Mary Hallowell?]
- GB 2014 WS-05-ELM-02-5-14
- Pièce
- 1819-04-06
Fait partie de Westminster School's Archive and Collections
Florence. Short opening times of the Laurentian library - about 14 hours a week - but able to work in his own room, so does not have to kill time. Italians a race of professed loungers. Loves Florence, but despises the Florentine gentry for their meanness. Depends on expatriate Englishmen for society - many half-pay officers (who would be dandies if they had the means of being so). The Hon. Brownlow-Charles Colyear a good example of the travelling youth of England (died in Rome because of wounds received from bandits whilst en route from Naples - but according to PE from a typhus fever). Dreadful weather over the winter - rain and fog - so cold that the cellars of confectioners contain blocks of ice thick even by English standards. Now lovely, though odd to see the surrounding hills white with snow. The weather changed with the arrival of the Emperor of Austria on 7th March, a person of mean presence. His fourth wife young enough to be PE's daughter - daughter married to Napoleon, and allowed to speak to no one. Florence very cheap - has only spent