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RIESBECK’S TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY, 73
-a more ferious turn, it is always about the theatre, which is the utmofl length to which
criticifm or obfervation ever extend in this country ; but the players are far from being
the company here that they are at Paris. None of thofe with whom I am hitherto ac-
quainted know their mother tongue. At Paris, undoubtedly, we fhould not admit into
good company, men who neither by their wit or their manners can raife themfelves at
all above the loweft of the vulgar.
Upon the whole, you meet here with none of the brifknefs, the fpirited pleafure, the
unconftrained fatisfaction, and the interefting curiofity about what is going forwards,
that you find at Paris even amongft the loweft orders of fociety. No body here makes
remarks upon the minifters or the court; no body entertains the company with the no-
velty or anecdote of the day. You meet with numberlefs people of the middling ranks
who have nothing to fay of their minifters, their generals, and philofophers, and who
hardly know even their names. Nothing is taken care of but the animal part. They
breakfaft till they dine, and they dine till they fup, with only the interval of, perhaps, a
fhort walk and going to the play. If you go into a coffee-houfe, of which there are about
feventy, or into a beer-houfe, which are the moft’ elegant and belt furnifhed of all the
public houfes, (i faw one with red damafk tapeftry, pictures with gilt frames, looking-
glaffes, clocks a-la-Grecque, and marble tables,) you will fee nothing but a perpetual
motion of jaws. One thing you may reft aflured of, that no one will come up to you or
be troublefome with queftions ; no man there talks at all, except with his neighbour,
and then he moft commonly whifpers. You would conceive you were in a Venetian
coffee-houfe, where they all take one another for fpies. When I fay all this I defire
to be underftood as fpeaking of the middling ranks only, who in all countries are what
properly may be called the people, for as to the people of rank, they, with a few fhades
only of diftinftion, are the fame throughout all Europe; and the loweft clafles hardly
mix with fociety. No doubt, a gentleman introduced, as Dr. Moore happened to be,
would meet with many an Afpafia capable of being claffed in the fame line with her im-
mortal prototype; (that is, the vicious part of the character excepted; ) an Afpafia whofe
circles are con{tantly filled by the wifeft philofophers, the deepeft ftatefmen, the greateft
generals, the wifeft, mildeft, and moft affable of princes; but it isnot in aflemblies of this
kind that the characters and manners of a nation are to be met with.
The fociablenefs, good tafte, and polifhed manners, which render the prefent court fo
remarkable, are a confequence of the travelled education of the prefent Emperor. His
father, indeed, had relaxed fomething of the Sultan manner in his court; but Jofeph
is the firft of his houfe who has confidered himfelf as a man born for all mankind.
Formerly one of the old nobility confidered it as a difgrace if a common citizen even
did but look at him; and the leffer, or fecond order of nobleffe, were excluded the court,
as is the practice in Spain. There are inftances of perfons, even of the rank of field-
marfhals, who could not gain admittance. ‘The whole train of fcience was banifhed un-
der the notion cf pedantry, and the arts, ever taitelefs without it, were employed only
to drefs up harlequins. ‘The Emperor Leopold, indeed, had fome tafte for mufic: but
conceive to yourfelf this prince (a cotemporary of Lewis XIV. at atime when the arts
were in all their glory with us) with his imperial crown on his imperial fhoulders, look-
ing out of his palace window to fee a fet of the loweft buffoons that ever difgraced a ftage
with their tricks, fing and dance in the court of the palace. Prince Eugene was the
firft who introduced any thing of a tafte into the country ; the firft who gave a general
love for French literature : he lived in the ftri€teft friendfhip with the wits and artifts of
his day, and was the fame here for the arts, that he had been in the imperial army,
where he had had as much to encounter with from folly and fuperftition, as from the
VOL. Vi. L largeft
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