Everything went "lemme, lemme,"
in the Sleepy Hollow of Tuscany in those days.
Used as he was to be laughed at, Leopold could occasionally be made
sleepily half angry by impertinences which had something of a sting in
them. Here is an amusing instance of that fact, and of the way in
which things used to be done in Tuscany. Most of the Italian
provinces--or larger cities, rather--have been from time immemorial
personated in the popular fancy by certain comic types, supposed to
represent with more or less accuracy the special characteristics of
each district. Venice, as all the world knows, has, and still more
had, her "Pantaloon," Naples her "Pulcinello," etc. The specialties of
the Florentine character are popularly supposed to be embodied in
"Stenterello," who comes on the Florentine stage, in pieces written
for the purpose, every Carnival, to the never-failing delight of the
populace. Stenterello is an absurd figure with a curling pigtail,
large cocked hat, and habiliments meant to represent those of a Tuscan
citizen of some hundred years or so ago. He is a sort of shrewd fool,
doing the most absurd things, lying through thick and thin with a sort
of simple, self-confuting mendacity, yet contriving to cheat
everybody, and always having, amid all his follies, a shrewd eye to
his own interest.
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