IT GENTIANO ET BASSO COS.
August xxix.
His Excellency with his whole family retired this day from Vienna to Baden, a small town, yet enclosed with an old wall, and celebrated for its baths, which are of pure sulphur. They rise in several places about the town, without any mixture of steel or other mineral, and are there collected into several square cisterns railed about with wood; where people of different quality bathe in distinct bagnios, and in some cases with good success. The town is seated four hours from Vienna, at the foot of the hills, which I take to be the Pannonian Alps. In this place Mr. Paget and I used the constant exercise of walking morning and evening, where I experienced a happy restoration of my health, once much debilitated in Turkey. Gloria in excelsis Deo!
September xxv.
His Excellency now sent Mr. Paget and myself to see the castle of Luxemburg, situated in the way betwixt Baden and Vienna. It is a mean building, in the form of a small quadrangle, and moted round. I observed several curious pictures in it, one particularly fine of the seven liberal sciences, in the dining room of the Emperor; another of the present King of France, when about four years of age; a third of Charles the fifth; a fourth of Matthias Corvinus and his father Huniades. The dining room is observable for an accident of thunder, which, while the Emperor and his family were at diner, entered the room at one quarter, passed in a semicircle about the table, and made its way thro the opposite wall with great explosion; while the Emperor remained in his seat with a remarkable calmness and serenity of mind. Adjoining to this building is a delightful park enclosed with pales; and nearer to the house a thick grove of elm and oak, in which is a long walk, and avenues so cut, as to resemble all the streets of Vienna.
September xxix.
This day Mr. Paget and I by the direction of his Excellency went to see a glass house, newly erected in the hills adjoining to this place, at the distance of about three hours. Our way thither lay thro a delicious vale, which conveys a small river, is graced with green meadows on each side, and above these with rising hills, adorned with a variety of trees, but particularly pines and firs. I here observed the several curiosities of that art and manufacture, which, tho frequent in England, I had never before seen. Returning home we stept a little to the left hand, to visit a convent of Cistercian monks, by the name of St. Cross, founded in the year 1131, by St. Leopold, Marquess of Austria. During the late siege of Vienna it was burnt by the Tartars (the common fate of all this country for thirty or forty Holland miles round Vienna) but soon after rebuilt by its own abbot, Clement Scheffer, in a more stately and splendid manner. Here reside an abbot, a prior, and about sixty monks, all royally maintained by noble revenues belonging to the monastery. They are neatly and gentilely dressed, lodged in pleasant chambers, have their public appartments alike magnificent, a fine garden, and prospects beautified with vistos and avenues cut in the adjoining woods. The abbot was then absent, but the prior and librarian treated us at supper, where we were served with seven or eight dishes, the best old wines, and conversation far from monkish. The librarian particularly was pleased to ridicule the custom of signing all the doors of this country with C. M. B. which the people fondly esteem a charm against fire and thievery; but he, as he said, instead of Cuspar Malcheir Bulkasar, was wont to interpret these letters Cax Mundus Beelzebub. At the same time I could not but be highly offended at a certain jocular freedom, with which he treated the Holy Scripture, saying with a profane mirth, when he delivered to us a glass of wine, Transeat a me calix iste; and when he had tossed off his own, Consummatum est. In truth we here saw not any token of popish zeal or superstition, as is usual in other places, no crucifixes, or images of the Trinity, Virgin, and the like; but instead of these, the whole Imperial family excellently well painted, and these in rooms, which for grandeur exceeded any, that the Emperor is master of in his palaces about Vienna. Here they favoured us with a lodging after a gentile and candid entertainment, and dismissed us in the like manner by eight a clock the next morning. Their library was mean, but the case very neat; tho the library had been much larger before the destruction by the Tartars. However I saw here a good Latin Ms. of the New Testament, without the Epistles of St. Peter, James, or John; and the Apocalypse placed immediately after St. John’s Gospel.
October iv.
My Lord and his family now returned from Baden to Vienna, where he lodged within the city in the house of C. Stratman, at the rate of five hundred florins a month. At Baden I was able to observe nothing, except some small matters relating to country affairs. As their way of making wine in the field, where they mash the grapes in broad open tubs, and tun it into large casks, as they lie in the cart. The manner of enclosing their vineyards with high poles joined at the top, and burnt at bottom to secure them from corrupting by the moisture of the ground. The manner of drawing sometimes with asses, and at other times with oxen, joining the harness to their horns without the use of yokes. I observed likewise their custom of calling a public officer upon the death of any animal; before which they dare not touch the carcass, he only being impowered to carry it away to a certain place, and there flea it, for which he receives three florins. This officer is called the hound slayer, because twice a year he is obliged to kill all the dogs both in town and country, that are found without a collar, which is thought an institution against spreading of infectious diseases.