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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY. 3
You know that I commonly travel on foot when I cannot get into a public land or
water carriage; but thefe are inexpreflibly pleafant to me on account of the company
I meet in them, even’ fhould that company happen to confit only of Jews, Capuchins,
and old women.
You know too that I am enough a citizen of the world to fird fome good out of my
own country, and not to be outrageoufly out of humour when all is not as it is at home.
You may depend on receiving one letter at leaft every week, in which you will have
an account either of a German town or of fome part of the country. General obfer-
vations I muft, of courfe, defer to the end, when I fhall have put together the feveral
broken parts of the narrative. I fhall not trouble you with any of the nonfenfe which
you mult have enough of in our daily publications.
PET THR “It.
Siutgart, April 10, 1780.
1 HOPE that you received my letter of the third, which was intended as a kind of
introduction to our future correfpondence. Though I know how odious letter-writing
is to you, I muft neverthelefs infilt on an anfwer to every fix of mine, and if you cannot
bring yourfelf to fit down to work, defire Nannette to do it for youu—But to my diary:
As I was geting into the poft-waggon at Strafburg, who‘hould come in, in a polt-chaife
and four, but Mr. B ! No doubt, you mutt have feen him at Paris at Madame
H——’s. ‘Whither,’ fays he, ‘fo faft?? ‘A pilgrimage through Germany,’
fays I. ‘ Out upon the ftupid country,’ fayshe; I have juft travelled over it, but in
truth it is not worth the trouble.’ At firft I thought that he muft at leaft have made
fome ftay in fome of the principal German towns; but when I came to inquire, I found
that what he called having travelled over the ftupid country, was a {mall excurfion from
Switzerland, through part of Suabia and Bavaria, as far as Munich, and from thence
into France again by Augiburg, Ulm, and Friburg. As there happened to be a map of
Germany behind the door of the pofl-houfe, with the point of my fword I traced the
parts of the country he had been over, and fhewed him, that far from having travelled
through Germany, he had fearce feen any part of it; but this did not affect him at all:
‘Go you,’ fayshe, ‘go you; for my part I have feen it.’
My company confifted of a wine-merchant from Ulm, with a melancholy face, who
was always fhaking his lips as if he had tafted four wine, and an elderly lady, who faid
fhe was hired as a governefs in 4 great houfe at Vienna. As neither of thefe compa-
nions had any peculiar charms for me, I amufed myfelf as we travelled along the banks
of the Rhine, with confidering the idea perfons who live in the great Parifian world en-
tertain of what they call with us /e Nord. I had been led into this by the gafeonade of
M.B , and the fight of the German poft-map. Here, then, thought I to myfelf,
(as I run over in my mind that track of country which reaches from the fpot I was then
on to the frozen fea,) in ancient times dwelt the Cimbri, the Goths, the Franks, the
Saxons, the Suabians, and the Allemanni; and here now are the Swedes, the Pruffians,
and the Ruffians; and all this great country, together with the formidable poffeflors of
it, we difpofe of ina word that conveys much the fame ideas to the readers as /es Pais
Bas, the low countries. Les Pais Bas and the Nord, a Frenchman confiders as only fo
many dependencies on the omnipotent France. ‘There is really nothing to be faid to
this butwhat Triftram Shandy fays upon a like occafion: ‘ The French have a pleafant
way of treating all great matters.’ I could not help laughing inwardly as thefe thoughts
B2 came
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