Among the people I have seen here, Mademoiselle Paradies, the blind performer on the harpsichord, interested me very much;—and she liked England so, and the King and Queen were so kind to her, and she was so happy, she said!—While life and its vexations seem to oppress such numbers of hearts, and cloud such variety of otherwise agreeable faces, one must go to a blind girl to hear of happiness, it seems! But she has wonderful talents for languages as well as music, and has learned the English pronunciation most surprisingly. It is a soothing sight when one finds the mind compensate for the body’s defects: I took great delight in the conversation of Mademoiselle Paradies.
The collection of rarities, particularly an Alexander’s head worthy of Capo di Monte, now in the possession of Madame de Hesse, became daily more my study, as I received more and more civilities from the charming family at whose house it resides: there are some very fine cameos in it, and a great variety of miscellaneous curiosities.
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.