We reached Ronciglione for the night. At this place we had the pleasure of meeting with Mr. John Bull1, lately from England but last of all from Rome, where he had been studying the finer arts, that is, the arts of eating and drinking, and who was now on his return to his native city of London, by way of Florence.
He had engaged a voiture of the same description with the one we were travelling in, for the exclusive use of himself and his servant, William Simple, who did not presume to speak any other language than what his mother had thought right to teach him, while Mr. Bull, by three months' practice and the assistance of a dictionary, had acquired sufficient Italian to enable him to call for the various objects of his affection.
He was loud in his complaints against his Italian coachman, Antonio Sulky, who, contrary to the assurances of the person from whom he had hired his carriage at Rome, was disposed to do everything to please himself, but nothing which he, Mr. Bull, was desirous should be done.
Poor Simple, however, appeared to come more immediately under his displeasure, for he had neglected to secure himself a bed, which he endeavoured to excuse by saying that he did not know how to ask for one.
"Why you fool," retorted the master, "go upstairs, look out for an empty room, lock the door and put the key in your pocket."
Notwithstanding the waiter was too much hurried to think that he had any right to be civil, I got a pretty good supper and bed, nor was I without bed-fellows, and had I been as active as they were lively, the dancing of St. Vitus2 would not have been comparable with my exertions.
But I comforted myself with the certainty of its being the last night of the journey, whereas poor Mr. Bull had but just commenced his. I cannot but acknowledge that I amused myself highly with the thoughts of the manner in which he would be jerked out of the Roman into the Tuscan states, an operation of which I am sure he could himself have no idea.
extract from The Narrative of a Journey through France, &c. (London, 1822) by James Holman FRS, pp.139-140, edited by Joe Rizzo Naudi.