Sept. 4.—Breakfasted with Mad. d’Ahlefeld at a public garden called The Little Osterwiese. It was a very small party given to the Princess Tour and Taxis. Afterwards we saw the palace of Prince Max,—very mediocre; and his garden, where the ornament that we were desired most to observe, because it contributed most to the Prince’s amusement, was a pipée, or contrivance for catching birds in a net. I cannot describe it. There was a building, several walks, and a great deal of apparatus connected with it. It is the Prince’s principal occupation. Poor man! We then went to the Gallery, where the picture that most struck me was a Raphael representing the Virgin standing on a cloud, with the infant Jesus in her arms, the saints on either side in the act of adoration, and at the bottom of the picture two of the loveliest heads of cherubs I ever saw. The Virgin’s face is divine. The Child, who appears about a year old, has more the expression of the King, than Saviour of the world. There is a beautiful haughtiness, mixed with disdain, in his features. Mad. Wissenberg passed the evening with me, and oppressed me with her tenderness. She has been educated in a convent in France, which I should have guessed, had she not told it to me.
Sept. 6.—Saw by torchlight Mengs’ selection of casts in plaster of Paris, from the chef-d’œuvres of Italy. They are lighted by a single torch carried by the Director, and are supposed to appear more soft, yet more prononcée, more dignified and less glaringly white, than by the light of day. In some measure cela les vivifie.
Sept. 7.—Dined at Mr. Elliot’s with the Hollands. Her Ladyship’s manner to her husband is too imperious; it is not the tyranny of a mistress or a wife, but of a governess to her trembling pupil.
Sept. 8.—Dined with the Hollands. She has a mixture of imperiousness and caprice very amusing to the mere spectators. Her indolence is also remarkable, and she lies in a very easy posture on a sofa, with screens between the lights and her eyes, in all the dignity of idleness, employing every individual who travels in her party, without apology or intermission. Her husband has the honour of being fag-in-chief, but she likewise entirely occupies a humorous clergyman, a peevish physician, and a young lord. There is besides a boy (Mr. Dickens) who comes occasionally, like those who attend servants in great families, to do jobs; but he has found out that she dislikes the trouble of repeating her orders, and often evades them by affecting not to hear.
Sept. 9.—This was a busy day to me. At ten I saw the magnificent Picture Gallery. Pictures which struck me most were an Abraham preparing to offer up Isaac, imitated from the Laocoon—the finest painting on this subject I have seen, and the only one that ever pleased me;—a Magdalen renouncing the pomps and vanities of the world, a discipline in her hand. She is perfectly beautiful, pale, touchante, and in an attitude expressive of the most perfect abstraction and abandon; the soul which informs that lovely form seems to dwell wholly in the eyes; the rest of the person has already ceased to exist. The Princess Dolgorouki has ordered a copy of the Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife—a strange choice!
Supped at the Princess Dolgorouki’s—her egotism and vanity excessive. ‘J’ai donné une fête au Roi de Pologne, qui l’a presque rendu fou. Madame de Brune avoit arrangé des groupes que nous répresentions sur un petit théâtre derrière une gaze—entr’autres la famille de Darius—moi, j’étois Statire aux pieds d’Alexandre. Après, la toilette de Vénus; trois des plus jolies femmes répresentoient les Graces; moi, j’étois Vénus, et il avoit un petit Amour en tricot qui me chaussoit.’
Sept. 18.—Arrived at Count Münster’s. He lives at Königsbruck, where he possesses a large and convenient château, which he has rendered cheerful by his taste in the disposition and furniture of the apartments. The family do not assemble at breakfast here as in England. Countess Münster rises at six, and does not establish herself in her drawing-room till about twelve. Their life is extremely retired; and I believe it is not so much the custom to receive company in a German château as in an English country-house. We dine at two, sup at half-past nine, and retire long before eleven.
Sept. 28.—Left Königsbruck, where I had passed a few very pleasant and retired days. Countess Münster is a warm partizan of the philosophy of Kant, who says perfectibility, and not happiness, should be the object of human researches. Mad. Münster has adopted this idea, and considers all revealed religion as priestcraft, and Christianity as depraving our hearts, because it founds our virtues on a selfish hope of future bliss, and contracting our understandings, because it substitutes faith for reason. She thinks truth unattainable, but that there is a degree of relative truth to which each understanding may arrive, in proportion to its strength and efforts. She is not the most formidable opponent to the Christian religion it has yet encountered; and I doubt if she perfectly understands herself on these subjects, which she seeks with an eagerness that denotes a perfect conviction of her own strength. A lofty contempt of those who do believe, and great bigotry to her own system, render her conversation on such topics unpleasing. She has some imagination, extensive reading, but little tact, and a great deal of vanity; yet she is altogether superior to the general class of females, and neither wants sensibility nor elevation.
Sept. 30.—From the Museum went to the collection of porcelain under the same roof—eighteen chambers full of the finest specimens of every kind of Japan, Chinese, and Saxon porcelain. The value of this collection is incalculable. I saw the Saxon dragon china, which is only permitted to be manufactured for the Electoral family—the dragons are in shades of crimson; perfect imitations of the brown and gold, or black and gold, japan; exquisite biscuit, in imitation of the antique; heaps of valuable, but by me unvalued, mandarins; a whole room full of Egyptian idols; all sorts of old-fashioned figures in glazed and coloured china; fine dressed ladies with hats on one side and crooks in their hands, shepherds with pink ribbons and yellow feathers kneeling at their feet, the dog and the sheep partaking in the general smirk; coloured bouquets, insipid, but curiously accurate; hundreds of such jars as have singly formed the happiness of many a respectable dowager; the coarse pottery painted by Raphael when he was in love with the potter’s daughter; and, in short, a profusion which I had never expected to behold. I then went to Graff’s, an excellent portrait painter. He is famous for catching the expression of the countenance, but he leaves nature pretty much as he finds her, without attempting to obtain as much ideal beauty as is consistent with the resemblance.[22]