The inns between Vienna and this place are very bad; but we arrived here
safe the 24th of November, when I looked for little comfort but much
diversion; things turned out however exactly the reverse, and _aux bains
de Prague_ in Bohemia we found beds more elegant, dinners neater dressed,
apartments cleaner and with a less foreign aspect, than almost any where
else. Such is not mean time the general appearance of the town out of
doors, which is savage enough; and the celebrated bridge singularly
ugly I think, crowded with vast groupes of ill-made statues, and heavy
to excess, though not incommodious to drive over, and of a surprising
extent. These German rivers are magnificent, and our Mulda here (which is
but a branch of the Elbe neither) is respectable for its volume of water,
useful for the fish contained in it, and lovely in the windings of its
course.
Bohemia seems no badly-cultivated country; the ground undulates like many
parts of Hertfordshire, and the property seems divided much in the same
manner as about Dunstable; my head ran upon Lilly-hoo, when they shewed
me the plains of Kolin.
Doctor Johnson was very angry with a gentleman at our house once, I well
remember, for not being better company; and urged that he had travelled
into Bohemia, and seen Prague:--“Surely,” added he, “the man who has
seen Prague might tell us something new and something strange, and not
sit silent for want of matter to put his lips in motion!” _Horresco
referens_;--I have now been at Prague as well as Doctor Fitzpatrick, but
have brought away nothing very interesting I fear; unless that the floor
of the opera-stage there is inlaid, which so far as I have observed is
a _new_ thing; the cathedral I am sure is an _old_ thing, and charged
with heavy and ill-chosen ornaments, worthy of the age in which it was
fabricated!--One would be loth to see any alteration take place, or any
picture drive old Frank’s Three Kings, divided into three compartments,
from its station over the high altar. St. John Neppomucene has an altar
here all of solid silver, very bright and clean; his having been flung
into the river Mulda in the persecuting days, holding fast his crucifix
and his religion, gives him a rational title to veneration among the
martyrs, and he is considered as the tutelar saint here, where his statue
meets one at the entrance of every town.
This truly Gothic edifice was very near being destroyed by the King of
Prussia, who bombarded the city thirty-five years ago; I saw the mark
made by one ball just at the cathedral door, and heard with horror of the
dreadful siege, when an egg was sold for a florin, and other eatables in
proportion: the whole town has, in consequence of that long blockade, a
ragged and half-ruined melancholy aspect; and the roads round it, then
broken up, have scarcely been mended since.
The ladies too looked more like masquerading figures than any thing else,
as they sat in their boxes at the opera, with rich embroidered caps, or
bright pink and blue sattin head-dresses, with ermine or sable fronts,
a heavy gold tassel hanging low down from the left ear, and no powder;
which gives a girlish look, and reminded me of a fashion our lower
tradesmen in London had about fifteen or eighteen years ago, of dressing
their daughters, from nine to twelve years old, in puffed black sattin
caps, with a long ear hanging down on one side. It is a becoming mode
enough as the women wear it here, but gives no idea of cleanliness; and I
suppose that whilst finery retains its power of striking, delicacy keeps
her distance, nor attempts to come in play till the other has failed
of its effect. Ladies dress here very richly, as indeed I expected to
find them, and coloured silk stockings are worn as they were in England
till the days of the Spectator:--“_Thrift, thrift, Horatio_;” as Hamlet
observes; for our expences in Great Britain are infinitely increased by
our advancement from splendor to neatness.
Here every thing seems at least five centuries behind-hand, and religion
has not purified itself the least in the world since the days of its
early struggle; for here Huss preached, and here Jerome, known by
the name of Jerome of Prague, first began to project the scheme of a
future reformation. The Bohemians had indeed been long before that
time indulged by the Popes with permission to receive the cup in the
sacrament, a favour granted no one else; and of that no notice was ever
taken, till further steps were made for the obtaining many alterations
that have crept in since that time in other nations, not so hasty to do
by violence what will one day be done of themselves without any violence
at all.
I asked to see some Protestant meeting-houses, and was introduced to
a very pleasing-mannered Livornese, who spoke sweet Italian, and was
minister to a little place of worship which could not have contained two
hundred people at the most; in fact his flock were all soldiers, he said.
Not a person who could keep a shop was to be found of _our_ persuasion,
nor was Lutheranism half so much detested even in Italy, he said. Though
I remember the boys hooting us at Tivoli too, and calling our English
Gentlemen, _Monsieur Dannato_.
The library does not seem ancient, but the grave person who shewed it
spoke very indifferent French, so that I could better trust my eyes than
my ears; this want of language is terrible!--A celestial globe moving
by clockwork concealed within, and shewing the sun’s place upon the
ecliptic very exactly, detained our attention agreeably; and I observed
a polyglot Bible printed at London in Cromwell’s time, with a compliment
to him in the preface, which they have expunged in succeeding editions.
A missal too was curious enough from its being decorated with some
singular illuminations upon one leaf; at the top of the page a figure of
Wickliffe is seen, striking the flint and steel; under him, in another
small compartment, Jerome of Prague blowing tinder to make his torch
kindle; below him again down the same side, Martin Luther, the flambeau
well lighted and blazing in his hand; at the bottom of the page poor
John Huss, betrayed by the Emperor who promised him protection, and
burning alive at a stake, to the apparent satisfaction of the charitable
fathers assembled at the council of Constance. Another curiosity should
be remembered; the manuscript letter from Zisca, the famous Protestant
general who headed the revolters in 1420; I was amazed to see in how
elegant an Italian hand it was written; the librarian said comically
enough--“_Ay, ay, it begins all about the fear of God_, &c.; _those
fellows_,” continued he, “_you know, are always sure to be canters!_”
The reigning sovereign has made few changes in church matters here,
except that which was become almost indispensable, the resolution to have
mass said only at one altar, instead of many at a time; the contrary
practice does certainly disturb devotion, and produce unavoidable
indecorums, as no one can tell what he turns his back upon, while the
bell rings in so many places of a large church at once, and so many
different functions are going forward, that people’s attention must
almost necessarily be distracted.
The eating here is incomparable; I never saw such poultry even at London
or Bath, and there is a plenty of game that amazes one; no inn so
wretched but you have a pheasant for your supper, and often partridge
soup. The fish is carried about the streets in so elegant a style it
tempts one; a very large round bathing-tub, as we should call it, set
barrow-wise on two not very low wheels, is easily pushed along by one
man, though full of the most pellucid water, in which the carp, tench,
and eels, are all leaping alive, to a size and perfection I am ashamed to
relate; but the tench of four and five pounds weight have a richness and
flavour one had no notion of till we arrived at Vienna, and they are the
same here.
How trade stands or moves in these countries I cannot tell; there is
great rigour shewn at the custom-house; but till the shopkeepers learn to
keep their doors open at least for the whole of the short days, not shut
them up so and go to sleep at one or two o’clock for a couple of hours,
I think they do not deserve to be disturbed by customers who bring ready
money. To-morrow (30th November 1786) we set out, wrapped in good furs
and flannels, for