Chapter V (8)

As I suffered so much for the sake of seeing this collection, I have indulged myself too long in talking of it perhaps; but Garrick is dead, and Siddons at a distance, and some compensation must be had; can any thing afford it except the statues of Rome, and the pictures of Bologna? here are a vast many from thence in this magnificent gallery.

We had a concert made on purpose for us last night by some amiable friends: it was a very good one. What I liked best though, was Mr. Tricklir’s new invention of keeping a harpsichord always in tune; and it seems to answer. I am no good mechanic, nor particularly fond of multiplying combinations; but the device of adding a thermometer to shew how much heat the strings will bear without relaxation seems ingenious enough: we had a vast many experiments made, and nobody could put the strings out of tune, or even break them, when his method was adopted; and it does not take up two minutes in the operation.

We have seen the Elector’s treasures; and, as a Frenchman would express it, _C’est icy qu’on voit des beaux diamants!_[51] The yellow brilliant ring is _unique_ it seems, and valued at an enormous sum; the green one is larger, and set transparent; it is not green like an emerald, but pale and bright, and beyond conception beautiful: hyacinths were new to me here, their glorious colour dazzles one; and here is a white diamond from the Great Mogul’s empire, of unequalled perfection; besides an onyx large as a common dinner plate, well known to be first in the universe. What majestic treasures are these!--The sapphires and rubies beat those of Bavaria, but the Electress’s pearls at Munich are unrivalled yet. Saxony is a very rich country in her own bosom it seems; the agates and jaspers produced here are excellent, nor are good amethysts wanting; the topazes are pale and sickly.

Nothing can be finer, or in its way more tasteful, than a chimney-piece made for the Elector, entirely from the manufacture and produce of his own dominions; that part which we should form of marble is white porcelane, with an exquisite bas-relief in the middle copied from the antique; its sides are set with Saxon gems, cameowise; and such carnelions much amaze one in so northern a latitude; the workmanship is beyond praise.--I asked the gentleman who shewed us the cabinet of natural history, why such richly-coloured minerals, and even precious stones, were found in these climates; while every animal product grows paler as it approaches the pole?--“Where phlogiston is frequent,” replied he, “there is no danger of the tint being too lightly bestowed: our quantity of iron here in Saxony, gives purple to the amethysts you admire; and see here if the rainbow-stone of Labrador yields in glowing hue to the productions of Mexico or Malabar.”--The specimens here however were not as valuable as the conversation of him who has the care of them; but a _plica Polonica_ took much of my attention; the size and weight of it was enormous, its length four yards and a half; the person who was killed by its growth was a Polish lady of quality well known in King Augustus’s court; it is a very strange and a very shocking thing!

Our library here is new and not eminently well stocked; but it is too cold weather now to stand long looking at rarities. The first Reformation bible published by Luther himself, with a portrait of the first Protestant Elector, is however too curious and interesting to be neglected; in frost and snow such sights might warm a heart well disposed to see the word of God disseminated, which had lain too long locked up by ignorance and interest united. Here is a book too, which how it escaped Pinelli I know not, a Venetian translation of the holy scriptures _a Brucioli_, the date 1592. King Augustus’s maps please one from their costliness; the Elector has twelve volumes of them; every letter is gold, every city painted in miniature at the corners, while arms, trophies, &c. adorn the whole, to an incredible expence: they were engraved on purpose for his use; and that no other Prince might ever have such again, he ordered the plates to be broke.

Sunday, December 17. I am just now returned home from the Lutheran church of Notre Dame; where, though the communicants do not kneel down like us, it is odd to say I never saw the sacrament administered with such solemnity and pomp. Four priests ornamented with a large cross on the back, a multitude of lighted tapers blazing round them, a uniformity in the dress of all who received, and music played in a flat third somehow very impressively, as they moved round in a sort of procession, making a profound reverence to the altar when they passed it, struck me extremely, who have been lately accustomed to see very little ceremony used on _such_ occasions; and I well remember at Pisa in particular, that while we were looking about the church for curiosity, one poor woman knelt down just by us, and a priest coming out administered the sacrament to her alone, the whole finishing in less than five minutes I am persuaded. I said to Mr. Seydelman, when we had returned home to-day, that the Saxons seemed to follow the first manner in reformation, our Anglicans the second, and the Calvinists the third: he understood my allusion to the cant of connoisseurship.

The sedan chairs here give the town a sort of homeish look; I had not been carried in one since I left Genoa, and it is so comfortable this cold clear weather! A regular market too, though not a fine one, has an English air; and a saddle of mutton, or more properly a chine, was a sight I had not contemplated for two years and a half. The Italians do call a cook _teologo_, out of sport; but I think he would be the properest theologian in good earnest, to tell why Catholics and Protestants should not cut their meat alike at least, if they cannot agree in other points. This is the first town I have seen however, where the butchers divided their beasts as we do.

The arsenal we have walked over delighted us but little: Saxons should say to their swords, like Benvolio in the play, “_God send me no need of thee!_”--for the Emperor is on one side of them, and the King of Prussia on the other. This last is always mentioned as a pacific prince though; and the first has so much to do and to think of, I hope he will forget Dresden, and suffer them to possess their fine territory and gems in perfect peace and quietness. One thing however was odd and pretty, and worth remarking, That at Rome there was an arsenal in the church--I mean belonging to it; and here there is a church in the arsenal.

The bombardment of this pretty town by their active neighbour Frederic; the sweet Electress’s death in consequence of the personal mortifications she received during that dreadful siege; the embarkation of the treasures to send them safe away by water; and the various distresses suffered by this city in the time of that great war;--make much of our conversation, and that conversation is interesting. I only wonder they have so quickly recovered a blow struck so hard.

The gaiety and good-humour of the court are much desired by the Saxons, who have a most lofty notion of princes, and repeat all they say, and all that is said of them, with a most venerating affection. I see no national partiality to England however, as in many other parts of Europe, though our religions are so nearly allied: and here is a spirit of subordination beyond what I have yet been witness to--an aunt kissing the hand of her own niece (a baby not six years old), and calling her “_ma chere comtesse!_”--carried it as high I think as it can be carried.

The environs of Dresden are happily disposed, for though it is deep winter we have had scarcely any snow, and the horizon is very clear, so that one may be a tolerable judge of the prospects. Our river Elbe is truly majestic and the great islands of ice floating down it have a fine appearance.

They do not double their sash-windows as at Vienna, but there is less wind to keep out. In every place people have a trick of lamenting, and there are two themes of lamentation universal for aught I see--the weather and the poor. I see no beggars here, and feel no rain,--but hear heavy complaints of both. Crying the hour in the night as at London pleased me much; why the ceremony is accompanied by the sound of a horn, nobody seems able to tell. The march of soldiers morning and night to music through the streets is likewise agreeable, and gives ideas of security; but driving great heavy waggons up and down, with two horses a-breast, like a chaise in England, and a postillion upon one of them, is very droll to look at. Ordinary fellows too in the Elector’s livery (blue and yellow) would seem strange, but that as soon as Dover is left behind every man seems to belong to some other man, and no man to himself. The Emperor’s livery is very handsome, but I do not admire _this_. A custom of fifteen or twenty grave-looking men, dressed like counsellors in Westminster Hall, with half a dozen boys in their company for _sopranos_, singing counterpoint under one’s window, has an odd effect; they are confraternities of people I am told, who live in a sort of community together, are maintained by contributing friends, and taught music at their expence; so in order to accomplish themselves, and shew how well they are accomplished, this curious contrivance is adopted. Every Sunday we hear them again in the church belonging to the parish that maintains them. A procession of bakers too is a droll oddity, but shews that where there is much leisure for the common people, some cheap amusement must be found: two of these bakers fight at the corner of every street for precedence, which by this means often changes hands; yet does not the conquered baker shew any signs of shame or depression, nor does the contest last long, or prove interesting. I suppose they have settled all the battles beforehand: no meaning seemed to be annexed either by performers or spectators to the show; we could make little diversion out of it, but have no doubt of its being an old superstition.

On Christmas eve I went to Santa Sophia’s church, and heard a famous preacher; his manner was energetic, and he kept an hour-glass by him, finishing with strange abruptness the moment it was expired. This was in use among our distant provinces as late as Gay’s time; he mentions it in a line of his pastorals, and says--

He preach’d the hour-glass in her praise quite out;

speaking of dead Blouzelind as I recollect. It now seems a strange _grossiereté_, but refinement follows hard upon the heels of reformation.

There is an agreeable fancy here, which one has always heard of, but never seen perhaps; the notion of calling together a dozen pretty children to receive presents upon Christmas eve. The custom is exceedingly amiable in itself, and gives beside a pleasing pretext for parents and relations to meet, and while away the time till supper in reciprocating caresses with their babies, and rejoicing in that species of happiness (the purest of all perhaps) which childhood alone can either receive or bestow. I was invited to an exhibition of this sort, and for some time saw little preparation for pleasure, except the sight of fourteen or fifteen well-dressed little creatures, all under the age of twelve I think, and more girls than boys: the company consisted of three or four and twenty people; all spoke French, and I was directed to observe how the young ones watched for the opening of a particular door; which however remained shut so long, that I forgot it again, and had begun to interest myself in chat with my nearest neighbour (no mother of course), when the door flew wide, and the master of the house announced the hour of felicity, shewing us an apartment gaily illuminated with coloured lamps; a sort of tree in grotto-work adorned the middle, and the presents were arranged all round; dolls innumerable, variously adjusted; fine new clothes, fans, trinkets, work-baskets, little escritoires, purses, pocket-books, toys, dancing-shoes,--every thing. The children skipped about, and capered with exultation;--“My own mama! my dear aunt! my sweet kind grandpapa!”--resounded wherever we turned our heads; I think it was the loveliest little show imaginable, and am sorry to know how description must necessarily wrong it: _les etrennes de Dresde_ shall however remain indelibly fixed in my memory. When the pretty dears had appropriated and arranged their presents, cake and lemonade were brought to quiet their agitated spirits, and all went home happy to bed. Their sparkling eyes and rosy cheeks served for our theme till supper-time; and I sat trying, but in vain, to find a reason why paternal affection appears so much warmer always in Protestant countries, and filial piety in those which remain firm to the church of Rome.

We returned home to our inn exceedingly well amused; the supper had been magnificent, and the preceding fast gave it additional relish. I now tremble with apprehension however lest the show of yesterday was too splendid: for if the mothers begin once to vie with each other whose gifts shall be grandest, or if once the friend at whose house the treat is prepared produces a more costly entertainment than his neighbours have hitherto contented themselves with giving, this innocent and even praiseworthy pastime will soon swell into expensive luxury, and burst from having been poisoned by the corroding touch of malice and of envy.

Our Saxons however seemed well-bred, airy, and agreeable in last night’s hour of festivity; and could I have fancied their gaiety quite natural like that of Venice or Verona, I might perhaps have caught the sweet infection, and felt disposed to merriment myself; but much of this was studied mirth one saw, and pleasure upon principle, as in our own island; which, though more elegant, is less attractive. It is difficult to catch the contagion of artificial hilarity, and a celebrated surgeon once told me, that one might live with safety at Sutton-house among the inoculated patients, without ever taking the disorder, unless the operation were regularly performed upon one’s self.

Well! we must shortly quit this very comfortable resting-place, and leave a town more like our own than any I have yet seen; where, however, the dresses, of ordinary women I mean, are extraordinary enough, each when she is made up for show wearing a rich old-fashioned brocade cloke lined with green lutestring, and edged round with narrow fur. This is universal. Her neat black love-hood however is not so ugly as the man’s bright yellow brass comb, stuck regularly in all their heads of long straight hair who are not people of fashion; and no powder is ever used among the Lutherans here in Saxony I see, except by gentlemen and ladies, who often take all _theirs_ out when they go to church, from some odd principle of devotion. It is very pretty though to see the little clean-faced lads and wenches running to school so in a morning at every protestant town, with the grammar and testament under their arm, while every the meanest house has a folio bible in it, and all the people of the lowest ranks can read it.

On this 1st of January 1787, I may boast of having visited lord Peter, Jack, and Martin, all in the course of one day. Hearing Mons. Dumarre preach to the French Huguenots in the morning, attending the established church at Notre Dame at noon, and going to the Elector’s truly-magnificent place of worship at night, where Hasse’s Te Deum was sung, and executed with prodigious regularity and pomp, over against an altar decorated with well-employed splendour, exhibiting zeal for God’s house, animated by elegant taste, and encouraged by royal presence;

While from the censer clouds of fragrance roll,
And swelling organs lift the rising soul.

I studied then to keep my mind, I hope I kept it free from narrow and from vulgar prejudice, desirous only of seeing the three principal sects of Christians adoring their Redeemer, each in the way they think most likely to please him; nor will I mention which method had the most immediate effect on _me_; but this I saw, that beneath

Such plain roofs as piety could raise,
Made vocal only by our maker’s praise,

Monsieur Dumarre produced from his peaceful auditors more tears of gratitude and tenderness in true remembrance of the sacred season, than were shed at either of the other churches. Indeed the sublime and pathetic simplicity of the place, the truly-touching rhetoric of the preacher, his story a sad one; while his persecuted family were forced to fly their native country, driven thence by the rigour of Romish severity, and his life exactly corresponding to the purity of that doctrine he teaches: his tones of voice, his tranquillity of manners,

His plainness moves men more than eloquence,
And to his flock, joy be the consequence!

The established sect here--_Lutheranism_, keeps almost the exact medium between the other two, though their places of worship strike me as something more theatrical than one could wish; very stately they are certainly, and very imposing. As few people however are fond of a middle state, as here is prodigious encouragement given by the court to Romanists, and full toleration from the state to the disciples of John Calvin, I wonder more members of the national church do not quit her communion for that of one of these chapels, which however owe their very existence in Saxony to that truly christian and catholick spirit of toleration, possessed by Martin alone.

We have recovered ourselves now from all fatigues; our coach and our spirits are once more repaired, and ready to set out for

BERLIN.

The road hither is all a heavy sand, cut through vast forests of ever-green timber, but not beautiful like those of Bavaria, rather tedious, flat, and tristful: to encrease which sensations, and make them more grievous to us, our servants complained bitterly of the last long frosty night, which we spent wholly in the carriage till it brought us here, where the man of the house, a bad one enough indeed, speaks as good English as I do, and has lived long in London. I am not much enchanted with this place however. Dean Swift said, that a good style was only proper words in proper places; and if a good city is to be judged of in the same way, perhaps Berlin may obtain the first place, which one would not on an immediate glance think it likely to deserve; as a mere residence however, it will be difficult to find a finer.

He who sighs for the happy union of situation, climate, fertility, and grandeur, will think _Genoa_ transcends all that even a warm imagination can wish. If with a very, very little less degree of positive beauty, he feels himself chiefly affected by a number of Nature’s most interesting features, finely, and even philosophically arranged; _Naples_ is the town that can afford him most matter both of solemn and pleasing speculation.

If ruins of pristine splendour, solid proofs of universal dominion, _once_, nay _twice_ enjoyed: with the view of temporal power crushed by its own weight, solicits his curiosity.--It will be amply gratified at _Rome_; where all that modern magnificence can perform, is added to all that ancient empire has left behind. Romantic ideas of Armida’s palace, fancied scenes of perennial pleasure, and magical images of ever varying delight, will be best realized at smiling _Venice_ of any place; but if a city may be called perfect in proportion to its external convenience, if making many houses to hold many people, keeping infection away by cleanliness, and ensuring security against fire by a nice separation of almost every building from almost every other; if uniformity of appearance can compensate for elegance of architecture, and space make amends for beauty, _Berlin_ certainly deserves to be seen, and he who planned it, to be highly commended. The whole looks at its worst now; all the churches are in mourning, so are the coaches: no theatre is open, and no music heard, except now and then a melancholy German organ droning its dull round of tunes under one’s window, without even the London accompaniment of a hoarse voice crying _Woolfleet oysters_. Come! Berlin can boast an arsenal capable of containing arms for two hundred and fifty thousand men. The contempt of decoration for a place destined to real use seemed respectable in itself, and characteristic of its founder. No columns of guns or capitals of pistols, neatly placed, are to be seen here. A vast, large, clean, cold-looking room, with swords and muskets laid up only that they may be taken down, is all one has to look at in Frederick’s preparations for attack or defence.

In accumulation of ornaments one hopes to find elegance, and in rejection of superfluity there is dignity of sentiment; but nothing can excuse a sovereign prince for keeping as curiosities worthy a traveller’s attention, a heap of trumpery fit to furnish out the shop of a Westminster pawnbroker. Our cabinet of rarities here is literally no better than twenty old country gentlemen’s seats, situated in the distant provinces of England, shew to the servants of a neighbouring family upon a Christmas visit, when the housekeeper is in good humour, and, gently wiping the dust off my _late lady’s mother’s_ amber-boxes, produces forth the wax figures of my lord John and my lord Robert when _babies_. For this pitiable exhibition, ships cut in paper, and saints carved in wood, we paid half a guinea each; not gratuity to the person who has them in charge, but tax imposed by the government. Every house here is obliged to maintain so many soldiers, excepting such and such only who have the word _free_ written over their doors; here seem to be no people in the town almost except soldiers though; so they naturally command whatever is to be had. Most nations begin and end with a _military_ dominion, as red is commonly the first and last colour obtained by the chymist in his various experiments upon artificial tints. This state is yet young, and many things in it not quite come to their full growth, so we must not be rigorous in our judgments. I have seen the library, in which we were for the first time shewn what is confidently _said_ to be an Æthiopian manuscript, and such it certainly may be for aught I know. What interested me much more was our Tonson’s _Cæsar_, a book remarkable for having been written by the first hero and general in the world perhaps, dedicated to the second, and possessed by the third. Here is an exceeding perfect collection of all Hogarth’s prints.

This city appears to be a very wholesome one; the houses are not high to confine the air between them, or drive it forward in currents upon the principle of Paris or Vienna; the streets are few, but long, straight, and wide; ground has not been spared in its construction, which seems a most judicious one; and with this well-earned praise I am most willing to quit it. It is the first place of any consequence I have felt in a hurry to run away from; for till now there have been _some_ attractions in every town; something that commanded veneration or invited fondness; something pleasing in its society, or instructive in its history. It would however be sullen enough to feel no agreeable sensation in seeing this child of the present century come to age so: the tomb of its author is the object of our present curiosity, which will be gratified to-morrow.

Ou sont ils donc, ces foudres de guerre,
Qui faisoient trembler l’univers?
Ils ne sont plus qu’un peu de terre,
Restes, qu’ont epargnis les vers[52].

POTZDAM.

And now, if Berlin wants taste and magnificence, here’s Potzdam built on purpose, I believe, to shew that even with both a place may be very dismal and very disagreeable. The commonest buildings in this city look like the best side of Grosvenor-square in London, or Queen’s-square at Bath. I have not seen a street so narrow as Oxford Road, but many here are much wider, with canals up the middle, and a row of trees planted on each side, a gravel walk near the water for foot passengers, instead of a _trottoir_ by the side of the houses. Every dwelling is ornamented to a degree of profusion; but to one’s question of, “Who lives in these palaces?” one hears that they are all empty space, or only occupied by goods never wanted, or corn there is nobody to feed with: this amazes one; and in fact here are no inhabitants of dignity at all proportioned to the residences provided for them; so that when one sees the copies of antique bas-reliefs, in no bad sculpture, decorating the doors whence dangle a shoulder of mutton, or a shoemaker’s last, it either shocks one or makes one laugh, like the old Bartholomew trick of putting a baby’s face upon an old man’s shoulders, or sticking a king’s crown upon a peasant’s head.

The churches are very fine on the outside, but strangely plain within: that, however, where the royal body reposes looked solemn and stately in its mourning dress. Black velvet, with silver fringe and tassels very rich and heavy, hung over the pulpit, family seat, &c. and every thing struck one with an air of melancholy dignity. The king of Prussia’s corpse, no longer animated by ambition, rests quietly in an unornamented solid silver coffin, placed in a sort of closet above ground, the door to which opens close to the pulpit’s feet, and shews the narrow space which now holds his body, beside that of his father, and the great elector, as he is still justly called.

My sepulchral tour is now nearly finished: we have in the course of this journey seen the last remains of many a celebrated mortal. Virgil, Raphael, Ariosto, Scipio, Galileo, Petrarch, Carlo Borromeo, and the king of Prussia. How different each from other in his life! How like each other now! But

Tous ces morts ont vecu; toi qui lis--tu mourras:
L’instant fatal approche, et tu n’y pense pas[53].

I could have wished before my return to have paused a moment on the tomb of Melancthon, who might be said to have united in himself _their_ separate perfections. Courage, genius, moderation, piety! persevering steadiness in the right way himself; candid acknowledgment of merit, even in his enemies, where he saw their intentions right, though he thought their tenets and their conduct wrong. But we are removed far from the dwelling of the _peacemaker_; let us at least look at the palace, now we have examined the coffin of him whose study and delight was _war_.

Sans Souci is surely an elegantly chosen spot, its architecture excellent, its furniture rich yet delicate, the gardens very happily disposed, the prospect from its windows agreeable, the pictures within an admirable collection. A hall built in imitation of the Colonna gallery shews Frederick’s taste at once and liberal spirit: the front seems borrowed from something at St. Peter’s; all is beautiful; the gilding of his long-room makes a very sudden and strong effect, nor are marbles of immense value wanting; here is a specimen of every thing I think, and two agate tables of prodigious size and beauty. The Silesian chrysopaz, and Carolina marble of a bright scarlet colour, quite luminous like the feathers of a fighting cock, struck me with their singular and splendid appearance. Rubens’s merit was not new to me, I hope; yet here is a resurrection of Lazarus, in which he has been lavish of it. The composition of this picture seems to have been intended to surpass every thing put together by other artists: its colouring glows like life.

The king’s town-house, however, is finer far than this his villa was designed to be; but I grew very tired walking over it: when one has dragged through twenty-four rooms variously hung with pink and silver, green and gold, &c. one grows cruelly weary with repeating the same ideas by drawling through forty-eight more. I wished to see his own private living apartments, and to mind with what books and pictures he adorned the dressing-room he always sate in: the first were chiefly works of Voltaire and Metastasio--the last were small landscapes of Albano and Watteau. At our desire they shewed us the little bed he slept, the chairs he sate in familiarly. Suetonius in French and Italian was the last author he looked into; they have made a mark at the death of Augustus, where he was reading when the same visitant called on him, quite unexpected by himself it seems, though all his attendants were well aware of his approach. As he expired he said, _I give you a vast deal of trouble_. We saw the spot he sate in at the moment; for Frederick no more died in his bed, than did the famous Flavius Vespasian; his servants wept as they repeated the particulars, caressing while they spoke his favourite dogs, one of which, a terrier, could hardly be prevailed upon to quit the body. It used to amuse the king to see them frighted when he would take them to a long room lined with French mirrors, which he did now and then to laugh at the effect.

Every thing at Potzdam shews a man in haste to enjoy what he had laboured so hard to procure; nor did he ever refuse himself, they say, any gratification that could make age less wearisome, or illness less afflictive. He had much taste of English ingenuity--combinations of convenience, and improvements in mechanism: his own writing-table, however, was contrived by himself; it stands on four legs, one pair longer than the other to make it slope; the covering is green velvet, with a square hole for the standish to drop in and not spill the ink: I liked the device exceedingly, but wondered he thought any device worth his preference. His conversation to his servants was affable and even gay; they loved his person, it is plain, and half adore his memory.

Such were the manners then, and such the death, of the far-famed philosopher of Sans Souci! And in truth, when he had so often set all present and future happiness to hazard, it would have been inconsistent not to hasten the enjoyment: nobody comes to inhabit his fine town, however, which has much the look of buildings in a stage perspective. Soldiers only, and such as sell wares necessary to soldiers, were all the human creatures I could see here; nor are families, or travellers of any sort indeed, better accommodated here than at inns of less pompous appearance on the outside.

For accommodations, however, I care but little; I have now walked over the oldest and the youngest cities in all Europe, and have left each with sincere admiration of their contents. Both are full of buildings and empty of inhabitants, nor am I desirous to add to the number in either. I was going to step forward into some room of the palace yesterday--“Madam, come back this instant,” exclaimed our Cicerone; “if that chamber is entered, my head will be off my shoulders in three days time.” Another well attested anecdote may be worth relating: A gentleman with whom we passed an agreeable evening at Berlin, whose lady invited to meet us whatever was most charming in the town, told the following story of a soldier who, being desirous of his body’s dissolution, but fearful of his soul’s rushing unprepared into eternity, caught and murdered a six months old baby; giving this strange account of his own feelings on the occasion, and adding, that he did not like to kill an adult, lest his own impatience of life’s insupportable torment might by that means precipitate his neighbour to perdition; but that a baptized infant would be sure of heaven, and he himself should gain time to prepare for following it--“And, Lord!” said my informer, “what reasoners this world has in it!” The soldier was hanged six weeks after the dreadful crime was committed; he made a very decent and penitential end.

On such facts what observations or reflections can result? I made none, but gave God thanks that I was born a subject of Great Britain.

POTZDAM TO HANOVER.

On the 13th of January 1787 then we quitted Potzdam, strongly impressed by the beauties of a town apparently fabricated by a modern Cadmus, who, when all the soldiers that he could _raise_ were fallen in _battle_ for his amusement, retired with the five that were left, and built a fine city!

Brandenbourg was our next resting place, and seemed to me to merit a longer stay in it; I saw an old Runick figure in the street, its size colossal, and its composition seemed black basalt; but of this I could obtain no account for want of language, our still recurring torment.--This place seems fuller of inhabitants than the last; but it is _so_ melancholy to have no compensation for the fatigues of a tedious journey! and in these countries information cannot be procured for travellers that do not mean to reside, present letters, &c.; which task we have at this season little taste to renew.

Magdebourg makes a respectable appearance at a distance, from the loftiness of its turrets; one sees them at least four long hours before the roads which lead to it permit one’s approach; and the towers seem to retire before one, like Ulysses’s fictitious country raised to deceive him. Never was I so weary in my life as when we entered Magdebourg, where, instead of going out to see sights as usual, I desired nothing so sincerely as a hot supper and soft bed, which the inns of Germany never fail to afford us in even elegant perfection.

Our linen too, so beautifully, and I will add so unnecessarily fine! The king of Naples probably never saw such sheets and table-cloths as we have been comforted with here, not only at Dresden, but every post since.

Magdebourg seems to have almost all its streets united by bridges; the Elbe divides there into so many branches, and none of them small.

Helmstadt is a little place which affords few images to the mind, and Brunswick to mere passengers, as we were, seemed to yield none but sad ones. The houses all of wood, even to prince Ferdinand’s palace, and painted of a dull olive colour with heavy pensile roofs, giving the town a melancholy look; but we met with young Englishmen who commended the society, and said no place could be gayer than Brunswick. This is among the reports one wishes to be true, and we are led the more willingly to believe them.

Another delight which I enjoyed at this city was, to find that every body in it, and every body passing through it, adored the duchess, whose partial fondness, and tender remembrance of her native country, justly endears her name to every subject of Great Britain. Her chapel is pretty; the garden, where they said she always walked two hours every day, put me in mind of Gray’s-Inn walks twenty or thirty years ago; they were then very like it.

From these scenes of solitude without retirement, and of age without antiquity, I was willing enough to be gone; but they would shew me one curiosity they said, as I seemed to feel particular pleasure in speaking of their charming duchess. We followed, and were shewn _her coffin!_ all in silver, finely carved, chased, engraved, what you will. “Before she is dead!” exclaimed I--“Before she was even married, madam,” replied our Cicerone; “it is the very finest ever made in Brunswick; we had it ready for her against she came home to us, and you see the plate left vacant for her age.” I was glad to drive forward now, and slept at Peina; which, though in itself a miserable place, exhibits one consolatory sight for a Christian--the sight of toleration. Here Romanists, Lutherans, and Calvinists, live all affectionately and quietly together, under the protection of the bishop of Paderborne; and here I first saw the king of England’s livery upon the king of England’s servants since I left home--“And if they _are_ ragged youngsters who wear it,” said I, “they are my fellow-subjects, and glad am I to see them!”

The villages and churches hereabouts resemble those of Merionethshire, only that not a mountain rears its head at all--one vast, wide, barren flat, through which roads that no weather can render better than barely passable brought us at length to Hanover, which stands, as all these cities do in the north of Germany, upon an immense plain, with a thick wood of noble timber trees breaking from time to time the almost boundless void, and relieving the eye, which is fatigued by extent without any object to repose upon, in a manner I can with difficulty comprehend, much less explain; but the sight of a passing waggon, or distant spire, is a felicity seldom found, though continually sought by me, while travelling through these wide wasted countries, where no idea is afforded to the imagination, no image remitted to the mind, but that of two armies encountering each other, to dispute the plunder of some place already unable to feed its few inhabitants.

The horses however are exceedingly beautiful; we were offered a pair of very fine ones for only forty pounds. They would have run such hazards getting home! “There are two ways to chuse out of,” said I; “if we purchase them, we shall repent on it every day till we arrive in London; if we do not, we shall repent on it every day after we get there.” Such is life! we did not buy the cattle.

The cleanliness of the windows, the manner of paving and lighting the streets at Hanover, put us in mind a little of some country towns in the remoter provinces of England; and there seems to be likewise a little glimpse of British manners, dress, &c. breaking through the common and natural fashions of the country. This was very pleasing to us, but I wished the place grander; I do not very well know why, but we had long counted on comforts here as at home, and I had formed expectations of something much more magnificent than we found; though the Duke of York’s residence does give the town an air of cheerfulness it scarce could shew without that advantage; and here are concerts and balls, and efforts at being gay, which may probably succeed sometime. How did all the talk however, and all the pamphlets, and all the lamentations made by old King George’s new subjects, rush into my mind, when I recollected the loud, illiberal, and indecent clamours made from the year 1720 to the year 1750, at least till the alarm given by the Rebellion began to operate, and open people’s eyes to the virtues of the reigning family! for till then, no topic had so completely engrossed both press and conversation, as the misfortunes accruing to _poor_ old England, from their King’s desire of enriching his Electoral dominions, and feeding his favourite Hanoverians with their good guineas, making fat the objects of his partial tenderness with their best treasures--in good time! Such groundless charges remind one of a story the famous French wit Monsieur de Menage tells of his mother and her maid, who, having wasted or sold a pound of butter, laid the theft upon the _cat_, persisting so violently that it had been all devoured by the rapacious favourite, that Madame de Menage said, “It’s very well; we will weigh the cat, poor thing! and know the truth:” The scales were produced, but puss could be found to weigh only _three quarters_, after all her depredations.

FROM HANOVER TO BRUSSELS.

Travelling night and day through the most dismal country I ever yet beheld, brought us at length to Munster, where we had a good inn again, and talked English. Well may all our writers agree in celebrating the miseries of Westphalia! well may they, while the wretched inhabitants, uniting poverty with pride, live on their hogs, with their hogs, and like their hogs, in mud-walled cottages, a dozen of which together is called by courtesy a village, surrounded by black heaths, and wild uncultivated plains, over which the unresisted wind sweeps with a velocity I never yet was witness to, and now and then, exasperated perhaps by solitude, returns upon itself in eddies terrible to look on. Well, the woes of mortal man are chiefly his own fault; war and ambition have depopulated the country, which otherwise need not I believe be poor, as here is capability enough, and the weather, though stormy, is not otherwise particularly disagreeable. January is no mild month any where; even Naples, so proverbially delicious, is noisy enough with thunder and lightning; and the torrents of rain which often fall at this season at Rome and Florence, make them unpleasing enough. Nor do I believe that the _very_ few people one finds here are of a lazy disposition at all; but it is so seldom that one meets with the _human face divine_ in this Western side of Germany, that one scarce knows what they are, but by report.

The town of Munster is catholic I see; their cathedral heavily and clumsily adorned, like the old Lutheran church called Santa Sophia at Dresden. One pair of their silver candlesticks however are eight feet high, and exhibit more solidity than elegance. They told us something about the _three kings_, who must have lost their way amazingly if ever they wandered into Westphalia, and deserved to lose their name of _wise men_ too, I think. We were likewise shewn the sword worn by St. Paul, they told us, and a backgammon table preserved behind the high altar, I could not for, my life find out why; at first our interpreter told us, that the man said it had belonged to _John the Baptist_, but on further enquiry we understood him that it was once used by some Anabaptists; as that seemed no less wild a reason for keeping it there, than the other seemed as an account of its original, we came away uninformed.

Of the reason why Hams are better here than in any other part of Europe, it was not so difficult to obtain the knowledge, and the inquiry was much more useful.

Poor people here burn a vast quantity of very fine old oak in their cottages, which, having no chimney, detain the smoke a long time before it makes its escape out at the door. This smoke gives the peculiar flavour to that bacon which hangs from the roof, already fat with the produce of the same tree growing about these districts in a plenty not to be believed. Indeed the sole decoration of this devasted country is the large quantity of majestic timber trees, almost all oak, living to such an age, and spreading their broad arms with such venerable dignity, that it is _they_ who appear the ancient possessors of the land, who, in the true style of Gothic supremacy, suck all the nutriment of it to themselves, only shaking off a few acorns to content the immediate hunger of the animal race, which here seems in a state of great degeneracy indeed, compared to those haughty vegetables.

This day I saw a fryar; the first that has crossed my sight since we left the town of Munich in Bavaria. On the road to Dusseldorp one sees the country mend at every step; but even _I_ can perceive the language harsher, the further one is removed from Hanover on either side: for Hanover, as Madame de Bianconi told me at Dresden, is the Florence of Germany; and the tongue spoken at that town is supposed, and justly, the criterion of perfect _Teutsch_.

The gallery of paintings here shall delay us but two or three days; I am so very weary of living on the high roads of _Teuchland_ all winter long! Gerard Dow’s delightful mountebank ought, however, to have two of those days devoted to him, and here is the most capital Teniers which the world has to show. Jaques Jordaens never painted any thing so well as the feast in this gallery, where there are likewise some wonderful Sckalkens; besides Rembrandt’s portrait of himself much out of repair, and old Franck’s Seven Acts of Mercy varnished up, as well as the martyrdoms representing some of the persecutions in early times of Christianity; these might be called the Seven Acts of Cruelty--a duplicate of the picture may be seen at Vienna. When one has mentioned the Vanderwerfs, which are all sisters, and the demi-divine Carlo Dolce in the window, representing the infant Jesus with flowers, full of sweetness and innocent expression, it will be time to talk of the General Judgment, painted with astonishing hardihood by Rubens, and which we stopt here chiefly to see. The second Person of the Trinity is truly sublime, and formed upon an idea more worthy of him, at least more correspondent to the general ideas than that in Cappella Sestini; where a beholder is tempted to think on Julius Cæsar somehow, instead of Jesus Christ--a Conqueror, more than a Saviour of mankind.

St. Michael’s figure is incomparable; those of Moses and St. Peter happily imagined; the spirit of composition, the manner of grouping and colouring, the general effect of the whole, prodigious! I know not why he has so fallen below himself in the Madonna’s character; perhaps not imitating Tintoret’s lovely Virgin in Paradise, he has done worse for fear of being servile. Tintoret’s idea of her is so _very_ poetical! but those who shewed it me at Venice said the drawing was borrowed from Guariento, I remember.

Who however except Rubens would have thought so justly, so liberally, so wisely, about the Negro drawn up to heaven by the angels? who still retains the old terrestrial character, so far as to shew a disposition to laugh at _their_ situation who on earth tormented him. When all is said, every body knows very well that Michael Angelo’s picture on this subject is by far the finest; and that neither Rubens nor Tintoret ever pretended, or even hoped to be thought as great artists as he: but though Dante is a sublimer poet than Tasso, and Milton a writer of more eminence than Pope, _these_ last will have readers, reciters, and quoters, while the others must sit down contented with silent veneration and acknowledged superiority.

This day we saw the Rhine--what rivers these are! and what enormous inhabitants they do contain! a brace of bream, and eels of a magnitude and flavour very uncommon except in Germany, were our supper here. But the manners begin I see to fade away upon the borders; our soft feather beds are left behind; men too, sometimes sad, nasty, ill-looked fellows, come in one’s room to sweep, &c. and light the fire in the stove, which is now always made of lead, and the fumes are very offensive; no more tight maids to be seen: but we shall get good roads; at Liege, down in a dirty coal pit, the bad ones end I think; and that town may be said to finish all our difficulties. After passing through our last disagreeable resting-place then, one finds the manners take a tint of France, and begins to see again what one has often seen before. The forests too are fairly left behind, but neat agriculture, and comfortable cottages more than supply their loss. Broom, juniper, every English shrub, announce our proximity to Great Britain, while pots of mazerion in flower at the windows shew that we are arrived in a country where spring is welcomed with ceremony, as well as received with delight. The forwardness of the season is indeed surprising; though it freezes at night now and then, the general feel of the air is very mild; willows already give signs of resuscitation, while flights of yellowhammers, a bird never observed in Italy I think, enliven the fields, and look as if they expected food and felicity to be near.

Louvaine would have been a place well worth stopping at, they tell me; but we were in haste to finish our journey and arrive at

BRUSSELS.

Every step towards this comfortable city lies through a country too well known to need description, and too beautiful to be ever described as it deserves. _Les Vues de Flandres_ are bought by the English, admired by the Italians, and even esteemed by the French, who like few things out of their own nation; but these places once belonged to Louis Quatorze, and the language has taken such root it will never more be eradicated. Here are very fine pictures in many private hands; Mr. Danot’s collection does not want me to celebrate its merits; and here is a lovely park, and a pleasing coterie of English, and a very gay carnival as can be, people running about the streets in crowds; but their theatre is a vile one: after Italy, it will doubtless be difficult to find masques that can amuse, or theatres that can strike one. But never did nation possess a family more charming than that of _La Duchesse d’Arenberg_, who, graced with every accomplishment of mind and person, devotes her time and thoughts wholly to the amusement of her amiable consort, calling round them all which has any power of alleviating his distressful condemnation to perpetual darkness, from an accident upon a shooting party that cost him his sight about six or seven years ago. Mean time her arm always guides, her elegant conversation always soothes him; and either from _gaieté de cœur_, philosophical resolution to bear what heaven ordains without repining, or a kind desire of corresponding with the Duchess’s intentions, he appears to lose no pleasure himself, nor power of pleasing others, by his misfortune; but dances, plays at cards, chats with his English friends, and listens delightedly (as who does not?) when charming Countess Cleri sings to the harpsichord’s accompaniment, with all Italian taste, and all German execution. By the Duke D’Aremberg we were introduced to Prince Albert of Saxony, and the Princesse Gouvernante, whose resemblance to her Imperial brother is very striking; her hand however, so eminently beautiful, is to be kissed no more; the abolition of that ceremony has taken place in all the Emperor’s family. The palace belonging to these princes is so entirely in the English taste, with pleasure grounds, shrubbery, lawn, and laid out water, that I thought myself at home, not because of the polite attentions received, for those I have found _abroad_, where no merits of mine could possibly have deserved, nor no services have purchased them. Spontaneous kindness, and friendship resulting merely from that innate worth that loves to energize its own affections on an object which some circumstances had casually rendered interesting, are the lasting comforts I have derived from a journey which has shewn me much variety, and impressed me with an esteem of many characters I have been both the happier and the wiser for having known. Such were the friends I left with regret, when, crossing the Tyrolese Alps, I sent my last kind wishes back to the dear state of Venice in a sigh; such too were my emotions, when we took leave last night at Lady Torrington’s; and resolving to quit Brussels to-morrow for Antwerp, determined to exchange the brilliant conversation of a _Boyle_, for the glowing pencil of a _Rubens_.

ANTWERP.

This is a dismal heavy looking town--_so_ melancholy! the Scheld shut up! the grass growing in the streets! those streets so empty of inhabitants! and it was so famous once. _Atuatum nobile Brabantiæ opidum in ripâ Schaldis flu. Europæ nationibus maximè frequentatum. Sumptuosis tam privatis quam publicis nitet ædificiis_[54], say the not very old books of geography when speaking of this once stately city;

But trade’s proud empire sweeps to swift decay,
As ocean heaves the labour’d mole away.

GOLDSMITH.