LETTER XLII.
Manheim.
This is generally reckoned one of the most beautiful cities in Germany. The streets are all as straight as arrows, being what they call tirées au cordeau, and intersect each other at right angles. This never fails to please at first, but becomes sooner tiresome than a town built with less regularity. When a man has walked through the town for half a forenoon, his eyes search in vain for variety: the same objects seem to move along with him, as if he had been all the while a ship-board.
They calculate the number of inhabitants at 24,000, including the garrison, which consists of 5000 men. This town has three noble gates, adorned with basso relievos very beautifully executed. The Duke and I walked round the ramparts with ease in the space of an hour. The fortifications are well contrived and in good order, and the town acquires great additional strength from being almost entirely surrounded by the Neckar and the Rhine, and situated in a flat, not commanded by any rising ground. Yet perhaps it would be better that this city were quite open, and without any fortification. An attempt to defend it might prove the destruction of the citizens’ houses, and the electoral palace. A palace is injudiciously situated when built within a fortified town, because a threat from the enemy to bombard it, might induce the garrison to surrender.
The Electoral palace is a most magnificent structure, situated at the junction of the Rhine and the Neckar.—The cabinet of natural curiosities, and the collection of pictures, are much vaunted. To examine them was amusing enough:—To describe them would, I fear, be a little tedious.
The Elector himself is a man of taste and magnificence, circumstances in his character, which probably afford more pleasure to himself, and the strangers who pass this way, than to his own subjects.
I accompanied the D—— to one of the officers of the court, whose business it is to present strangers. This gentleman is remarkable for his amazing knowledge in all the mysteries of etiquette. He entertained his Grace with much erudition on this subject.—I never observed the D—— yawn so very much.—When our visit was over, he asserted that it had lasted two hours.—Upon examining his watch, he discovered that he had made a mistake of one hour and forty minutes only.
We were presented the following day to the Elector and the Electress. He was dressed in the uniform of his guards, seems to be on the borders of fifty, and has a sensible manly countenance, which I am told is the true index of his character.