Instead of living as we do in great hotels, the people at these baths take their own lodgings, three or four families in a house, and meet in their drives and walks, or in small exclusive parties. The Duke gives a ball every Tuesday, to which all respectable strangers are invited; and while I was there an Italian prince, who married into the royal family of Spain, gave a grand _fete_ at the theatre. There is usually some party every night, and with the freedom of a watering-place, they are rather the pleasantest I have seen in Italy. The Duke's chamberlain, an Italian cavalier, has the charge of a _casino_, or public hall, which is open day and night for conversation, dancing and play. The Italians frequent it very much, and it is free to all well-dressed people; and as there is always a band of music, the English sometimes make up a party and spend the evening there in dancing or promenading. It is maintained at the Duke's expense, lights, music, and all, and he finds his equivalent in the profits of the gambling-bank.
I scarce know who of the distinguished people I met there would interest you. The village was full of coroneted carriages, whose masters were nobles of every nation, and every reputation. The originals of two well-known characters happened to be there--Scott's _Diana Vernon_, and the _Miss Pratt_ of the Inheritance. The former is a Scotch lady, with five or six children; a tall, superb woman still, with the look of a mountain-queen, who rode out every night with two gallant boys mounted on ponies, and dashing after her with the spirit you would bespeak for the sons of Die Vernon. Her husband was the best horseman there, and a "has been" handsome fellow, of about forty-five. An Italian abbé came up to her one night, at a small party, and told her he "wondered the king of England did not marry her." "Miss Pratt" was the companion of an English lady of fortune, who lived on the floor below me. She was still what she used to be, a much-laughed-at but much-sought person, and it was quite requisite to know her. She flew into a passion whenever the book was named. The rest of the world there was very much what it is elsewhere--a medley of agreeable and disagreeable, intelligent and stupid, elegant and awkward. The _women_ were perhaps superior in style and manner to those ordinarily met in such places in America, and the _men_ vastly inferior. It is so wherever I have been on the continent.