Part 16

So different are the customs here and at Venice, that the German ladies offer you chocolate on the same salver with coffee, of an evening, and fill up both with milk; saying that you may have the latter quite black if you chuse it--“_Tout noir, Monsieur, à la Venetienne_;”--adding their best advice not to risque a practice so unwholesome. While their care upon that account reminds me chiefly of a friend, who lives upon the Grand Canal, that in reply to a long panegyric upon English delicacy, said she would tell a story that would prove them to be nasty enough, at least in some things; for that she had actually seen a handsome young nobleman, who came from London (_and ought to have known better_), souce some thick cream into the fine clear coffee she presented him with; which every body must confess to be _vera porcheria_! a very _piggish trick_!--So necessary and so pleasing is conformity, and so absurd and perverse is it ever to forbear such assimilation of manners, when not inconsistent with the virtue, honour, or necessary interest:--let us eat sour-crout in Germany, frittura at Milan, macaroni at Naples, and beef-steaks in England, if one wishes to please the inhabitants of either country; and all are very good, so it is a slight compliance. Poor Dr. Goldsmith said once--“I would advise every young fellow setting out in life _to love gravy_;”--and added, that he had formerly seen a glutton’s eldest nephew disinherited, because his uncle never could persuade him to say he liked gravy.

PRAGUE.

The inns between Vienna and this place are very bad; but we arrived here safe the 24th of November, when I looked for little comfort but much diversion; things turned out however exactly the reverse, and _aux bains de Prague_ in Bohemia we found beds more elegant, dinners neater dressed, apartments cleaner and with a less foreign aspect, than almost any where else. Such is not mean time the general appearance of the town out of doors, which is savage enough; and the celebrated bridge singularly ugly I think, crowded with vast groupes of ill-made statues, and heavy to excess, though not incommodious to drive over, and of a surprising extent. These German rivers are magnificent, and our Mulda here (which is but a branch of the Elbe neither) is respectable for its volume of water, useful for the fish contained in it, and lovely in the windings of its course.

Bohemia seems no badly-cultivated country; the ground undulates like many parts of Hertfordshire, and the property seems divided much in the same manner as about Dunstable; my head ran upon Lilly-hoo, when they shewed me the plains of Kolin.

Doctor Johnson was very angry with a gentleman at our house once, I well remember, for not being better company; and urged that he had travelled into Bohemia, and seen Prague:--“Surely,” added he, “the man who has seen Prague might tell us something new and something strange, and not sit silent for want of matter to put his lips in motion!” _Horresco referens_;--I have now been at Prague as well as Doctor Fitzpatrick, but have brought away nothing very interesting I fear; unless that the floor of the opera-stage there is inlaid, which so far as I have observed is a _new_ thing; the cathedral I am sure is an _old_ thing, and charged with heavy and ill-chosen ornaments, worthy of the age in which it was fabricated!--One would be loth to see any alteration take place, or any picture drive old Frank’s Three Kings, divided into three compartments, from its station over the high altar. St. John Neppomucene has an altar here all of solid silver, very bright and clean; his having been flung into the river Mulda in the persecuting days, holding fast his crucifix and his religion, gives him a rational title to veneration among the martyrs, and he is considered as the tutelar saint here, where his statue meets one at the entrance of every town.

This truly Gothic edifice was very near being destroyed by the King of Prussia, who bombarded the city thirty-five years ago; I saw the mark made by one ball just at the cathedral door, and heard with horror of the dreadful siege, when an egg was sold for a florin, and other eatables in proportion: the whole town has, in consequence of that long blockade, a ragged and half-ruined melancholy aspect; and the roads round it, then broken up, have scarcely been mended since.

The ladies too looked more like masquerading figures than any thing else, as they sat in their boxes at the opera, with rich embroidered caps, or bright pink and blue sattin head-dresses, with ermine or sable fronts, a heavy gold tassel hanging low down from the left ear, and no powder; which gives a girlish look, and reminded me of a fashion our lower tradesmen in London had about fifteen or eighteen years ago, of dressing their daughters, from nine to twelve years old, in puffed black sattin caps, with a long ear hanging down on one side. It is a becoming mode enough as the women wear it here, but gives no idea of cleanliness; and I suppose that whilst finery retains its power of striking, delicacy keeps her distance, nor attempts to come in play till the other has failed of its effect. Ladies dress here very richly, as indeed I expected to find them, and coloured silk stockings are worn as they were in England till the days of the Spectator:--“_Thrift, thrift, Horatio_;” as Hamlet observes; for our expences in Great Britain are infinitely increased by our advancement from splendor to neatness.

Here every thing seems at least five centuries behind-hand, and religion has not purified itself the least in the world since the days of its early struggle; for here Huss preached, and here Jerome, known by the name of Jerome of Prague, first began to project the scheme of a future reformation. The Bohemians had indeed been long before that time indulged by the Popes with permission to receive the cup in the sacrament, a favour granted no one else; and of that no notice was ever taken, till further steps were made for the obtaining many alterations that have crept in since that time in other nations, not so hasty to do by violence what will one day be done of themselves without any violence at all.

I asked to see some Protestant meeting-houses, and was introduced to a very pleasing-mannered Livornese, who spoke sweet Italian, and was minister to a little place of worship which could not have contained two hundred people at the most; in fact his flock were all soldiers, he said. Not a person who could keep a shop was to be found of _our_ persuasion, nor was Lutheranism half so much detested even in Italy, he said. Though I remember the boys hooting us at Tivoli too, and calling our English Gentlemen, _Monsieur Dannato_.

The library does not seem ancient, but the grave person who shewed it spoke very indifferent French, so that I could better trust my eyes than my ears; this want of language is terrible!--A celestial globe moving by clockwork concealed within, and shewing the sun’s place upon the ecliptic very exactly, detained our attention agreeably; and I observed a polyglot Bible printed at London in Cromwell’s time, with a compliment to him in the preface, which they have expunged in succeeding editions. A missal too was curious enough from its being decorated with some singular illuminations upon one leaf; at the top of the page a figure of Wickliffe is seen, striking the flint and steel; under him, in another small compartment, Jerome of Prague blowing tinder to make his torch kindle; below him again down the same side, Martin Luther, the flambeau well lighted and blazing in his hand; at the bottom of the page poor John Huss, betrayed by the Emperor who promised him protection, and burning alive at a stake, to the apparent satisfaction of the charitable fathers assembled at the council of Constance. Another curiosity should be remembered; the manuscript letter from Zisca, the famous Protestant general who headed the revolters in 1420; I was amazed to see in how elegant an Italian hand it was written; the librarian said comically enough--“_Ay, ay, it begins all about the fear of God_, &c.; _those fellows_,” continued he, “_you know, are always sure to be canters!_”

The reigning sovereign has made few changes in church matters here, except that which was become almost indispensable, the resolution to have mass said only at one altar, instead of many at a time; the contrary practice does certainly disturb devotion, and produce unavoidable indecorums, as no one can tell what he turns his back upon, while the bell rings in so many places of a large church at once, and so many different functions are going forward, that people’s attention must almost necessarily be distracted.

The eating here is incomparable; I never saw such poultry even at London or Bath, and there is a plenty of game that amazes one; no inn so wretched but you have a pheasant for your supper, and often partridge soup. The fish is carried about the streets in so elegant a style it tempts one; a very large round bathing-tub, as we should call it, set barrow-wise on two not very low wheels, is easily pushed along by one man, though full of the most pellucid water, in which the carp, tench, and eels, are all leaping alive, to a size and perfection I am ashamed to relate; but the tench of four and five pounds weight have a richness and flavour one had no notion of till we arrived at Vienna, and they are the same here.

How trade stands or moves in these countries I cannot tell; there is great rigour shewn at the custom-house; but till the shopkeepers learn to keep their doors open at least for the whole of the short days, not shut them up so and go to sleep at one or two o’clock for a couple of hours, I think they do not deserve to be disturbed by customers who bring ready money. To-morrow (30th November 1786) we set out, wrapped in good furs and flannels, for

DRESDEN;

Whither we arrive safe this 4th of December,--

----A wond’rous token Of Heav’n’s kind care, with bones unbroken!

As the ingenious Soame Jenyns says of a less hazardous drive in a less barbarous country I hope: but really to English passengers in English carriages, the road from Prague hither is too bad to think on; while nothing literally impels one forward except the impossibility of going back. Lady Mary Wortley says, her husband and postillions slept upon the precipices between Lowositz and Aussig; but surely the way must have been much better then, as all the opium in both would scarce have stupefied their apprehensions now, when a fall into the Elbe must either have interrupted or finished their nap; because our coach was held up every step of the journey by men’s hands, while we walked at the bottom about seven miles by the river’s side, suffering nothing but a little fatigue, and enjoying the most cloudless beautiful weather ever seen. The Elbe is here as wide I think as the Severn at Gloucester, and rolls through the most varied and elegant landscape possible, not inferior to that which adorns the sides of the little Dart in Devonshire, but on a greater scale; every hill crowned with some wood, or ornamented by some castle.

As soon as we arrived, tired and hungry, at Aussig, we put our shattered coach on board a bark, and floated her down to Dresden; whither we drove forward in the little carts of the country, called chaises, but very rough and with no springs, as our very old-fashioned curricles were about the year 1750. The brightness of the weather made even such a drive delightful though, and the millions of geese on and off the river gave animation to the views, and accounted for the frequency of those soft downy feather-beds, which sooth our cares and relieve our fatigue so comfortably every night. Hares will scarce move from near the carriage wheels, so little apprehensive are they of offence; and the partridges run before one so, it is quite amusing to look at them. The trout in these great rivers are neither large nor red: I have never seen trout worth catching since I left England; the river at Rickmansworth produces (one should like to know why) that fish in far higher perfection than it can be found in any other stream perhaps in Europe.

The being served at every inn, since we came into Saxony, upon Dresden china, gives one an odd feel somehow; but here at the Hôtel de Pologne there is every thing one can wish, and served in so grand a style, that I question whether any English inn or tavern can compare with it; so elegantly fine is the linen, so beautiful the porcelaine of which every the meanest utensil is made; and if the waiter did not appear before one dressed like Abel Drugger with a green cloth apron, and did not his entrance always fill the room with a strong scent of tobacco, I should think myself at home again almost. This really does seem a very charming town; the streets well built and spacious; the shops full of goods, and the people willing to shew them; and if they _do_ cut all their wood before their own doors, why there is room to pass here without brawling and bones-breaking, which disgusts one so at Vienna; it seems lighter too here than there; I cannot tell why, but every thing looks clean and comfortable, and one feels _so much at home_. I hate prejudice; nothing is so stupid, nothing so sure a mark of a narrow mind: yet who can be sure that the sight of a Lutheran town does not afford in itself an honest pleasure to one who has lived so long, though very happily, under my Lord Peter’s protection?

Here Brother Martin has all precedence paid _him_; for though the court are Romanists, their splendid church here is _called_ only a chapel, and they are not permitted to ring the bell, a privilege the Lutherans seem much attached to, for nothing can equal the noise of _our_ bells on a Sunday morning at Dresden.

The architecture is truly hideous, but no ornaments are spared; and the church of Notre Dame here is very magnificent. The china steeples all over the country are the oddest things in the world; spires of blue or green porcelaine tiles glittering in the sun have a strange effect. But nothing can afford a stronger proof that crucifixes, Madonnas, and saints, need not be driven out of churches for fear they should be worshipped, than the Lutherans admission of them into _theirs_; for no people can be further removed from idolatry, or better instructed in the Christian religion, than the common people of this town; where a decent observation of the sabbath struck me with most consolatory feelings, after living at Paris, Rome, and Florence, where it is considered as a _merry_, not a _holy_ day at all! and though there seems nothing inconsistent or offensive in our rejoicing on the day of our Lord’s resurrection, yet if people are encouraged to _play_, they will soon find out that they may _work_ too, the shops will scarcely be shut, and all appearance of regard to the fourth commandment will be done away. The Lutherans really seem to observe the golden mean; they frequent their churches all morning with a rigorous solemnity, no carts or business of any sort goes forward in the streets, public and private devotion takes up the whole forenoon; but they do not forbear to meet and dance after six o’clock in the evening, or play a sober game for small sums at a friend’s house.

The society is to me very delightful; more women than men though, and the women most agreeable; exceedingly sensible, well informed, and willing to talk on every subject of general importance, but religion or politics seem the favourite themes, and are I believe most studied here;--no wonder, the court and city being of different sects, each steadily and irrevocably fixed in a firm persuasion that their own is best, causes an investigation that comes not in the head of people of other countries; and it is wonderful to see even the low Romanists skilled in controversial points to a degree that would astonish the people nearest the Pope’s person, I am well persuaded.

The Saxons are excessively loyal however, and have the sense to love and honour their sovereign no less for his difference of opinion from theirs, than if all were of one mind; yet knowing his principles, they watch with a jealous eye against encroachments, while the amiable elector and electress use every tender method to induce their subjects to embrace _their_ tenets, and weary heaven with prayers for their conversion, as if the people were heathens. One great advantage results from this odd mixture of what so steadily resists uniting; it is the earnest desire each has to justify and recommend their notions by their practice, so that the inhabitants of Dresden are among the most moral, decent, thinking people I have seen in my travels, or indeed in my life. The general air and manner both of place and people, puts one in mind of the pretty clean parts of our London, about Queen Square, Ormond Street, Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, and Southampton Row.

The bridge is beautiful, more elegant than showy; the light iron railing is better in some respects than a stone balustrade, and I do not dislike the rule they make to themselves of going on _one_ side the way always, and returning the other, to avoid a crowd and confusion.

But it is time to talk about the picture gallery, where, cold as our weather is, I contrive to pass three hours every day, my feet well defended by _perlaches_, a sort of cloth clogs, very useful and commodious. And now I have seen the _Notte di Corregio_ from which almost all pictures of _effect_ have taken their original idea; and here are three other Corregios inimitable, invaluable, incomparable. Surely this _Notte_ might stand side by side with Raphael’s Transfiguration; and as Sherlock says that Shakespear and Corneille would look only on the Vesuvius side of the prospect at Naples, while Pope and Racine would turn their heads towards Posilippo; so probably, while the two first would fasten all their attention upon the Demoniac, the two last would console their eyes with the sweetness of Corregio’s Nativity. His little Magdalen too set round with jewels, itself more precious than any or than all of them, possesses wonderful powers of attraction; it is an hour before one can recollect that there are some glorious Titians in the same façade; but Caracci, who depends not on his colouring for applause, loses little by their vicinity, and Poussin is always equally respectable. The Rembrandts are beyond credibility perfect of their kind, and produce a most powerful effect. His portrait of his own daughter has neither equal nor price, I believe; though the girl has little dignity to be sure, and less grace about her; but if to represent nature as she _is_ suffices, this is the first single figure in Europe as painting a _live woman_.--The Jupiter and Ganymede is very droll indeed, and done with very _un_-Italian notions; but the eagle looks as if one might pluck his feathers; it is very life itself.--A candle-light Rubens here is shewn as a prodigious rarity; a Ruysdael as much resembling nature in _his_ country, I do believe, as Claude Lorraine ever painted in _his_.--The crayons Cupid of Mengs which dazzles, and the portrait of old Parr by Vandycke which interests one, are pictures which call one to look at them again and again; and the little Vanderwerfs kept in glass cases, smooth as ivory, and finished to perfection, are all alike to be sure; one would wonder that a man should never be weary of painting single figures so, and constantly repeating the same idea; his eyes must have had peculiar strength too, to endure such trials, mine have been pained enough this morning with only looking at his labours, and those of the indefatigable Denny. Let me refresh them with a Parnassus of Giacomo Tintoret, who puts all the colourists to flight except Corregio.

But here are two pictures which display prodigious genius, by a master of whom I never heard any one speak, Ferdinand Bol, who unites grace and dignity to the clear obscure of Rembrandt, whose scholar he was. Jacob blessing Pharoah, painted by him, is delightful; and Joseph’s expressions while he presents his father, full of affectionate partiality and fond regard for the old man, heightens his personal beauty; while the king’s character is happily managed too, and gives one the highest idea of the artist’s skill. A Madonna reposing in her flight to Egypt with a fatigued look, her head supported by her hand, is elegant, and worthy of the Roman or Bolognese schools; the landscape is like Rembrandt. This gallery boasts an Egyptian Mary by Spagnolet, too terrifying to look long at; and a small picture by Lodovico Carracci of the Virgin clasping her Son, who lies asleep in her lap, while a vision of his future crucifixion shewn her by angels in the sky, agitates every charming feature of her face, and causes a shrinking in her figure which no power of art can exceed.

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.