All is gaiety and good humour. You return again to the foot-promenade, and look sharply about you, as you move onward, to catch the spark of beauty, or admire the costume of taste, or confess the power of expression. It is an Albanian female who walks yonder ... wondering, and asking questions, at every thing she sees. The proud Jewess, supported by her husband and father, moves in another direction. She is covered with brocade and flaunting ribbands; but she is abstracted from every thing around her ... because her eyes are cast downwards upon her stomacher, or sideways to obtain a glimse of what may be called her spangled epaulettes. Her eye is large and dark: her nose is aquiline: her complexion is of an olive brown: her stature is majestic, her dress is gorgeous, her gait is measured--and her demeanour is grave and composed. "She must be very rich," you say--as she passes on. "She is prodigiously rich," replies the friend, to whom you put the question:--for seven virgins, with nosegays of choicest flowers, held up her bridal train; and the like number of youths, with silver-hilted swords, and robes of ermine and satin, graced the same bridal ceremony. Her father thinks he can never do enough for her; and her husband, that he can never love her sufficiently.
Whether she be happy or not, in consequence, we have no time to stop to enquire ... for, see yonder! three "turbaned Turks" make their advances. How gaily, how magnificently they are attired! What finely proportioned limbs--what beautifully formed features! They have been carousing, peradventure, with some young Greeks--who have just saluted them, en passant--at the famous coffee-house before-mentioned. Every thing around you is novel and striking; while the verdure of the trees and lawns is yet fresh, and the sun does not seem yet disposed to sink below the horizon. The carriages still move on, and return, in measured procession. Those who are within, look earnestly from the windows--to catch a glance of their passing friends. The fair hand is waved here; the curiously-painted fan is "shaken there; and the repeated nod is seen in almost every other passing landaulet. Not a heart seems sad; not a brow appears to be clouded with care.
Such--or something like the foregoing--is the scene which usually passes on a Sunday evening--perhaps six months out of the twelve--upon the famous PRATER at Vienna; while the tolling bell of St. Stephen's tower, about nine o'clock--and the groups of visitors hurrying back, to get home before the gates of the city are shut against them--usually conclude the scene just described.
And now, my good friend, methinks I have given you a pretty fair account of the more prominent features of this city--in regard to its public sights; whether as connected with still or active life: as churches, palaces, or theatres. It remains, therefore, to return again, briefly, but yet willingly, to the subject of BOOKS; or rather, to the notice of two Private Collections, especially deserving of description--and of which, the first is that of the EMPEROR HIMSELF.
His Majesty's collection of Books and Prints is kept upon the second and third floors of a portion of the building connected with the great Imperial library. Mr. T. YOUNG is the librarian; and he also holds the honourable office of being Secretary of his Majesty's privy council. He is well deserving of both situations, for he fills them with ability and success. He has the perfect appearance of an Englishman, both in figure and face. As he speaks French readily and perfectly well, our interviews have been frequent, and our conversations such as have led me to think that we shall not easily forget each other. But for the library, of which he is the guardian. It is contained in three or four rooms of moderate dimensions, and has very much the appearance of an English Country Gentleman's collection of about 10,000 volumes. The bindings are generally in good taste: in full-gilt light and gray calf--with occasional folios and quartos resplendent in morocco and gold. I hardly know when I have seen a more cheerful and comfortable looking library; and was equally gratified to find such a copious sprinkling of publications from Old England.
But my immediate, and indeed principal object, was, a list of a few of the Rarities of the Emperor's private collection, as well in ms. as in print. Mr. Young placed before me much that was exquisite and interesting in the former, and splendid and creditable in the latter, department. He begged of me to judge with my own eyes, and determine for myself; and he would then supply me with a list of what he considered to be most valuable and splendid in the collection. Accordingly, what here ensues, must be considered as the united descriptions of my guide and myself:--Mr. Young having composed his memoranda in the Latin language. First, of the MANUSCRIPTS. The Gospels; a vellum folio:--with illuminated capitals, and thirteen larger paintings, supposed to be of the thirteenth-- but I suspect rather of the fourteenth--century. A Breviary .. "for the use of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy" This vellum MS. is of the fifteenth century, and was executed for the distinguished character to whom it is expressly dedicated. This is really an elegant volume: written in the gothic character of the period, and sprinkled with marginal and capital initial decorations. Here are--as usual in works of this kind, executed for princes and great men--divers illuminations of figures of saints, of which there are three of larger size than the rest: and, of these three, one is eminently interesting, as exhibiting a small portrait of DUKE CHARLES himself, kneeling before his tutelary saint.
Here is an exceedingly pretty octavo volume of Hours, of the fifteenth century, fresh and sparkling in its illuminations, with marginal decorations of flowers, monsters, and capriccios. It is in the binding of the time--the wood, covered with gilt ornaments. Office of the Virgin: a neat vellum MS. of the fourteenth century--with ornamented capital initials and margins, and about two dozen of larger illuminations. But the chief attraction of this MS. arises from the text having been written by four of the most celebrated Princesses of the House of Austria, whose names are inscribed in the first fly leaf.
Here is a "Boccace des Cas des Nobles" by Laurent Premier Fait-- which is indeed every where. Nor must a sprinkle of Roman Classics be omitted to be noticed, however briefly. A Celsus, Portions of Livy, the Metamorphosis of Ovid, Seneca's Tragedies, the Æneid of Virgil, and Juvenal: none, I think, of a later period than the beginning or middle of the fifteenth century--just before the invention of printing. Among the MSS. of a miscellaneous class, are two which I was well pleased to examine: namely, the Funerailles des Reines de France, in folio--adorned with eleven large illuminations of royal funerals--and a work entitled Mayni Jasonis Juris consulti Eq. Rom. Cæs., &c, Epitalamion, in 4to. The latter MS. is, in short, an epithalamium upon the marriage of Maximilian the Great and Blanche Maria, composed by M. Jaso, who was a ducal senator, and attached to the embassy which returned with the destined bride for Maximilian. What is its chief ornament, in my estimation, are two sweetly executed small portraits of the royal husband and his consort. I was earnest to have fac- similes of them; and Mr. Young gave me the strongest assurances that my wishes should be attended to.[148] Thus much; or perhaps thus little, for the MSS. Still more brief must be my account of the PRINTED BOOKS: and first for a fifteener or two. It is an edition of Dio Chrysostom de Regno, without date, or name of printer, in 4to.; but most decidedly executed (as I told Mr. Young) by Valdarfer. What renders this copy exceedingly precious is, that it is printed UPON VELLUM; and is, I think, the only known copy so executed. It is in beautiful condition. Here is a pretty volume of Hours, in Latin, with a French metrical version, printed in the fifteenth century, without date, and struck off UPON VELLUM. It has wood-cuts, which are coloured of the time. From a copy of ms. verses, at the beginning of the volume, we learn that "the author of this metrical version was Peter Gringore, commonly called Vaudemont, herald at arms to the Duke of Lorraine; who dedicated and brought this very copy to Renatus of Bourbon." I was much struck with a magnificent folio Missal, printed at Venice by that skilful typographical artist I.H. de Landoia, in 1488--UPON VELLUM: with the cuts coloured.[149] A few small vellum Hours by Vostre and Vivian are sufficiently pretty.
In the class of books printed upon vellum, and continuing with the sixteenth century, I must not fail to commence with the notice of two copies of the Tewrdannckh, each of the date of 1517, and each UPON VELLUM. One is coloured, and the other not coloured. Mr. Young describes the former in the following animated language: "Exemplar omnibus numeris absolutum, optimeque servatum. Præstantissimum, rarissimumque tum typographicæ, tum xylographicæ artis, monumentum." Lucani Pharsalia, 1811. Folio. Printed by Degen. A beautiful copy, of a magnificent book, UPON VELLUM; illustrated by ten copper plates. M.C. Frontonis Opera: edidit Maius Mediol. 1815. 4to. An unique copy; upon vellum. Flore Medicale decrite par Chaumeton & peinte par Mme. E. Panckoucke & I.F. Turpin. Paris, 1814. Supposed to be unique, as a vellum copy; with the original drawings, and the cuts printed in bistre. Here is also a magnificent work, called "Omaggio delle Provincie Venetæ" upon the nuptials of the present Emperor and Empress of Austria. It consists of seventeen copper-plates, printed upon vellum, and preserved in two cases, covered with beautiful ornaments and figures, in worked gold and silver, &c. Of this magnificent production of art, there were two copies only printed upon vellum, and this is one of them.
Up stairs, on the third floor, is kept his Majesty's COLLECTION of ENGRAVED PORTRAITS--which amount, as Mr. Young informed me, to not fewer than 120,000 in number. They commence with the earliest series, from the old German and Italian masters, and descend regularly to our own times. Of course such a collection contains very much that is exquisite and rare in the series of British Portraits. Mr. Young is an Italian by birth; but has been nurtured, from earliest youth, in the Austrian dominions. He is a man of strong cultivated parts, and so fond of the literature of the "Zodiacus Vitæ" of Marcellus Palingenius--translated by our Barnabe Googe: of the editions of which translation he was very desirous that I should procure him a copious and correct list. But it is the gentle and obliging manners--the frank and open-hearted conversation-- and, above all, the high-minded devotedness to his Royal master and to his interests, that attach, and ever will attach, Mr. Young to me--by ties of no easily dissoluble nature. We have parted ... perhaps never to meet again; but he may rest assured that the recollection of his kindnesses ("Semper honos nomenque," &c.) will never be obliterated from my memory.[150]