May 12.—Saw the Hungarian Guard in gala, a most beautiful sight. Seventy-two young men, the flower of the Hungarian nobility, magnificently and tastefully dressed, mounted on white horses, finely shaped and full of spirit. The costume is rich, yet so well fancied that it adds to personal dignity, which most splendid dresses diminish. It is composed of a scarlet vest and trousers, made to the shape, with green belts, scarfs, and yellow half-boots, all richly trimmed and embroidered with silver. A tiger’s skin is fancifully disposed on the back, and covers part of the left arm. A very lofty fur cap, ornamented with green and silver, is completed with a heron’s feather. Upon the whole it is rich, yet not heavy; splendid, yet not gaudy; and while every part is ornamental, none seems to impede the exertion of strength or activity.
May 13.—Saw Count Lambert’s collection of pictures—an excellent choice. My favourite, a storm and shipwreck by Loutherbourg, much superior to his usual style of colouring, very transparent, beautiful, and expressive. The Etruscan vases are numerous, and he supposes them coeval with the Creation, as he declares them six thousand years old.
May 14.—Saw the porcelain manufactory. It is said the mass is not so fine as that of Dresden, of which the white is beautifully clear and transparent, somewhat like a plover’s egg. It is, however, eminently beautiful; but the biscuit figures are not in such good taste, nor so well proportioned, as those of Dresden. A plateau, designed as a present from the Emperor to the Duchess of York, cannot be enough admired. The biscuit figures in the middle represent the story of Cupid and Psyche. It costs twelve thousand florins.
May 15.—Went to a breakfast at the Prater. I went at one, hoping the violence of the breakfast would be over, as I do not love sitting long at table. Unfortunately others do. This social meal had begun at twelve, and lasted till three, when dancing began. It is the custom to dance a country-dance and a waltz alternately; but those who only dance the former are treated unfairly; for, as the waltz is the favourite, and there is no reason it should ever finish, a vast deal more time is devoted to it than to the country-dance, which has a stated progress. The waltz is so passionately beloved by the German women, that numbers of all ranks fall a sacrifice to it; and every Carnival is usually fatal to one or two individuals of the first society.
May 16.—Found the Princess Rosamoffska at home in a delicious country-house, or, as they call it here, garden—very like Richmond. I find her extremely pleasing. She is one of the daughters of Madame de Thune, the Madame de Sévigné of Vienna. Her husband was a ci-devant Russian Minister, and I see she has a large share of the general antipathy to the Emperor. She asked me if I had seen two excellent caricatures of him. In the first he writes with one hand Ordre, with the other Contre-ordre, while on his forehead is written Désordre. In the second, Peter the Great is represented with a torch he appears to have just lighted; Catherine the Second has a pair of snuffers to make it burn still brighter, and poor Paul an—extinguisher. I left Madame Rosamoffska much pleased with her conversation, and the prévenante vivacity of her manners.
I found the following verses on a loose sheet of paper, quite separate from the journal, and without any date; but if my Mother made actually, and not merely in imagination, a visit to the famous shrine at Mariazell—which is in Styria, and some seventy miles from Vienna—it must have been during this, her only residence in that city. I am quite ignorant whether she is here recording an incident in her own travels, or in those of another; but the description of the scenery in the earlier lines appears like that of one drawing on her own experience. The story is a touching one, and may help to remind that there are other forms of human life besides that highly artificial one in which at this time the writer was moving.
MARIAZELL.
I joined the crowd that from Vienna streamed
As pious pilgrims to Mariazell,