The cathedral at Saltzbourg is modern, built upon the model of St. Peter’s at Rome, but on a small scale: one now sees how few the defects are of that astonishing pile, though brought close to one’s eye, by being stript of the awful magnitude that kept examination at a distance. The musical bells remind me of those at Bath, and every thing here seems, as at Bath, the work of this present century; but there is a Benedictine convent seated on the top of a hill above the town, of exceeding antiquity, founded before the conquest of England by William the Norman; under which lie its founder and protectors, the old Dukes of Bavaria; which they are happy to shew travellers, with the registered account of their young Prince Adam, who came over to our island with William, and gained a settlement: they were pleased when I proved to them, that his blood was not yet wholly extinct among us.
A fever hindered us here from looking at the salt-works, from which the city takes its name: but the water-works at Heelbrun pleased us for a moment; and I never saw beavers live so happily as with the Archbishop of Saltzbourg, who suffers, and even encourages, his tame ones to dig, and build, and amuse themselves their own way: he has fish too which eat out of his hand, and are not carp, but I do not know what they are; my want of language distracts me. These German streams appear to us particularly pellucid, and, by what I can gather from the people, this water never freezes. The taste of gardening seems just what ours was in England before Stowe was planned, and they divert you now with puppets moved by concealed machinery, as I recollect their doing at places round London, called the Spaniard at Hampstead and Don Saltero’s at Chelsea.
The Prince Archbishop’s income is from three to four hundred thousand a year I understand, and he spends it among his subjects, who half adore him. His chief delight is in brute animals they tell me, particularly horses, which engross so much of his attention that he keeps one hundred and seventeen for his own private and personal use, of various merits, beauties, and pedigrees; never surely was so elegant, so capital a stud! And he is singularly fond of a breed of fine silky-haired English setting-dogs, red and white, and very high upon their legs.
The country which carried us forward to Vienna is eminently fine, and fine in a way that is now once more grown new to me; no hedges here, no small inclosures at all; but rich land, lying like as in Dorsetshire, divided into arable and pasture grounds, clumped about with woods of ever-green. Such is the genius of this sovereign for English manners and English agriculture, that no conversation is said to be more welcome at his court than what relates to the sports or profits of the field in Britain; to which accounts he listens with good-humoured earnestness, and talks of a fine scenting day with the true taste of an English country gentleman.
On this day I first saw the Danube at Lintz, where, though but just burst from the spring, it is already so deep and strong that scarcely any wooden bridge is capable to resist it, and accordingly it did a few months ago overwhelm many cottages and fields, among which we passed. The inhabitants here call it Donaw from its swiftness; and it deserves beside, any name expressive of that singular purity which distinguishes the German torrents.
The rivers of France, Italy, and England, give one no idea of that elemental perfection found in the fluids here; not a pebble, not a fish in these translucent streams, but may be discerned to a depth of twelve feet. As the water in Germany, so is the atmosphere in Italy, a medium so little obstructed by vapour I remember, that Vesuvius looked as near to Naples, from our window, as does lord Lisburne’s park from the little town of Exmouth opposite, a distance of about five miles I believe, and the other is near ten. Let me add, that this peculiarity brings every object forward with a certain degree of hardness not wholly pleasing to the eye. The prospects round Naples have another fault, resulting from too great perfection: the sky’s brilliant uniformity, and utter cloudlessness for many months together, takes away those broad masses of light and shade, with the volant shadows that cross our British hills, relieving the sight, and discriminating the landscape.
The scenery round Conway Castle in North Wales, with a thunder-storm rolling over the mountain; the sea strongly illuminated on one side, with the sun shining bright upon the verdure on the other; the lights dropping in patches about one; exhibits a variety, the which to equal will be very difficult, let us travel as far as we please.
Magnificence of a far different kind however claims our present attention—a convent and church shewn us at Molcke upon our way, the residence of eighteen friars who inhabit a stately palace it is confessed, while three immense courts precede your entrance to a splendid structure of enormous size, on which the finery bestowed amazed even me, who came from Rome; nor had entertained an idea of seeing such gilding, and carving, and profusion of expence, lavished on a place of religious retirement in our road to