the imperial palace of Schonbrunn, which contributed not a little to improve the prospect on our right. The day of my arrival was a holiday, and the road was thronged with caravans going and coming with great rapidity, sometimes containing not less than twenty passengers; they raised terrible clouds of dust, which intercepted the sight at a few paces distance. I reached the barriers at length, and proceeding through the suburbs, which took up half an hour, I entered the city. Upwards of an hour was spent in the search of an apartment with furnished lodgings; the hotels and auberges were full, or otherwise not to my taste, and I at last accepted the recommendation of my postillion, who removed me to Leopoldstadt, one of the suburbs, in an island of the Danube. Here I found suitable accommodations, and regretted that I had not followed his advice sooner.

The city of Vienna, (Wien, Germ. Vindobona, and Vienna, Lat. Bets, Hung.) stands on the right bank of the Danube, in a pleasant situation, lat. 48°, 12, 40", N. long. 17°, 32', 30", E. of London, and about 413 feet above the level of the sea. Some authors trace its origin to a village of the Windes or Wendes, in the same place, the name of which must have been Windewohn, a dwelling of the Wendes, whence the Romans made Vindobona. Others assert that it took the name of Fabiana, or Faviana, from a Roman governor named Fabius, or from a king of the Rugians named Fava, the word being afterwards corrupted to Viana, and then to Vienna.

At Vienna we must make a distinction between the city and the suburbs. The city occupies but a very small space, and is surrounded with fosses and fortifications. As it includes the ordinary residence of the court, and is the centre of all the public offices, and the seat of commercial transactions, it naturally becomes the most populous. The streets are extremely narrow, the houses very high, and the whole population is exceedingly straitened. Though the number of palaces, hotels, and superb buildings is more considerable, in proportion, than in any other great city, the aspect of the whole seems dark and melancholy, breathing an air of austerity beyond the common standard of German gravity.*

The suburbs are much more extensive, and infinitely more agreeable; the houses are more spacious, less crowded together, the streets wider, and the gardens are in great numbers, diffusing a gay appearance over the whole. The suburbs

According to an average observation of the barometer, of 17 years, at the mean temperature of 12o, 5′, 8′′, for the mercury, and 10° for the air, it will be at Om, 7478. The hall of the observatory, wherein the barometer is fixed, is at S5" above the confluence of the Vienne and the Danube,

form a sort of rural district to the city, and there, at the return of fine weather, the great lords, who have erected magnificent palaces with delightful gardens, spend a part of the summer. There is also a considerable number of handsome public buildings, such as the school of surgery, the polytechnic school, with numerous churches, among which is that of St. Charles, considered as the finest in Vienna. There are several very pleasing promenades, in the midst of parterres, wherein the vegetation is rich and abundant, the city affording nothing of the kind.

But notwithstanding these advantages, there are also inconveniences, which no doubt will be removed hereafter, but at present are disagreeable. In the suburbs, the principal streets only are paved, and the rest, in winter or rainy weather, are covered with mud. The boulevard, which we pass over to enter into the city, is also filled with it; add to which, that in summer, in the dry weather, we are scorched by the sun, and stifled with dust.

The suburbs have all been raised since 1684; those prior to that period were destroyed, in 1683, at the approach of the Turkish army, during the revolt of count Tekeley, in Hungary.

They have not always made a part of the city; several formed distinct villages, till Joseph II. incorporated them with Vienna. They have been since increasing rapidly, and an extensive line drawn round the city would take in about 6000 houses and 180,000 souls; the city alone may have 1400 houses, and 46,000 inhabitants. The suburbs are thirty-three in number; the principal and most beautiful are Leopoldstadt, Wachringergasse, Alvergasse, Josephstadt, Maria Hulf, Wieden, and Landstrasse. The Prater, the finest promenade in Vienna, and perhaps in Europe, is in Leopaldstadt. It is a sort of magnificent forest at the gates of the city, in a large island of the Danube; it is more than a league in length, and half a league wide, and contains oaks, beech, lime, and chesnut trees, all of a superior description. Superb avenues, with flowery meadows on each side, have been cut through it, interrupting the monotony which the thickness of the foliage would occasion, and giving animation to the scene. A multitude of booths and little auberges are scattered in various directions, forming detached hamlets, exhibiting spectacles, games, horsemanship, &c. The Prater is, in summer, the rendezvous of the whole town, and when enlivened by a crowd of splendid equipages, by the gay assemblage of the population, diversified with Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, &c. all in their national costume, the traveller of sensibility will feel himself highly gratified..

If Vienna, in its interior, presents few attractions, this must be attributed to the height of the houses and the narrowness of the streets, for there are few cities, and especially fortified cities, that contain, in proportion, so great a number of palaces, hotels, and genteel buildings. These are mostly of pretty recent construction; few, or none, however, display any thing remarkable in their architecture. The imperial palace is an immense structure, but having been enlarged at different periods, there is little of symmetry in the exterior, and its general appearance falls below the idea that one would form for the mansion of a great Sovereign. Certain parts of it look beautiful, and others have an air of imposing grandeur, but here, as throughout Vienna, every thing is crowded; the palace is concealed on one side, by the houses of the town, and by the rampart on the other; nor is there any other entrance or egress than by arcades that are necessarily public, and of course generally encumbered with carriages and foot passengers. Among the churches, that of St. Stephen is well deserving of attention; its architecture is a beautiful Gothic. The spire, which is not so high as that of Strasburg, but bolder and higher than any in Paris, is 414 feet above the level of the pavement.

Within the city, the number of places or public squares is pretty considerable, but they are, for the most part, irregular, and thronged with little stalls of hucksters. In their centre appear fountains and monuments, but often overcharged with ornaments, and generally in a bad taste. The place Joseph may be considered as one of the courts of the Chateau; it has an air of dignity which would be greatly enhanced were it more spacious. The statue of Joseph II., which occupies the centre, is frigid, and not without its imperfections; it adds, however, to the embellishments of the place.

The houses of Vienna are mostly of bricks or timber; buildings of any consequence are of stone. Some are of a particular free-stone, greyish or yellowish, of which I observed a series of mountains, previous to my reaching Vienna. Others are of calcareous, coquiliferous stones, from the borders of the lake of Neusiedel, in Hungary, and resembling those most in use at Paris. The streets are pretty well paved; on each side are causeways for foot passengers, consisting of large flags of grey granite, from Saiblingstein, on the banks of the Danube. The middle of the street is of grey-coloured free-stone, partly brought from Burkersdorf, where I had occasion to notice some quarries, and partly from other points of the same mountains.

In treating of Vienna, I must not omit mentioning their mode of paving under coach gateways. In lieu of stones, they

use cubes of wood, placed one beside another as in ordinary pavements, so that the edges of the wood lie vertical. In this way, a carriage passing under the gate makes no shaking or harsh noise, as when the paving consists of stones. Fir is the timber employed, and this sort of pavements will last for a long time.

The number of hotels with furnished lodgings, is not considerable at Vienna, which seems rather unaccountable, considering the vast influx of strangers. In the very heart of the city the accommodations are not the most inviting, and a stranger feels little inclination to stop there. But in the auberges of the suburbs it is otherwise, and the terms reasonable; in this respect, Leopoldstadt may be recommended for a traveller who means to make only a short stay. The air is salubrious, and the Prater is nigh at hand, where, every day the promenade is respectable, and on Sundays it is thronged with all the various classes of society. In most of the auberges you may have your meals, either in your own apartment or at a common table. But these meals are regularly from twelve to two, and from eight to ten; nothing can be had in the intervals, unless previously ordered. The auberges where liquor only is to be had, are distinguished by a bundle of shavings, moulded into the form of a bell; those, where eating is provided, are noted by a bunch of fir. Some of the traiteurs are in very great vogue, and there are many coffee-houses; some are pretty well furnished, and here all the voluminous gazettes of the German States may be read. One particular, incommoding to a stranger, is, that the hackney coaches, which are pretty numerous and ready at hand, either for town or country, are subject to no fixed prices, so that you must agree with them beforehand, or you may expect disagreeable altercations.

Such is the general outline that I sketched of Vienna, during the short time of my residence, going through and returning. As to the various institutions, such as the university, the academy of surgery, the gymnasia, the polytechnic school, the academy of commerce, that of the fine arts, the normal school, the academy of oriental languages, the general seminary, the institution for deaf and dumb, the hospitals, the establishments of a benevolent description, of which there are many that do great honour to the inhabitants, and some to the care of government, I had no time to examine or treat of in detail, inspecting some very rapidly, and others not at all. In general, I may remark, that, as to the primary bases of instruction, it appears less forward here than in other parts of Germany. The polytechnic school has no resemblance to ours; it is limited to providing a certain number of young persons with

instruction merely elementary in the arts and commerce, so far as to construct plans, and in the practical parts of stone cutting; these extend also to chemistry, physics, natural history, as connected with the arts and commerce, also to history, geography, and the languages. The plan of this establishment is more assimilated to that of our schools of arts and trades, but is more comprehensive.

Vienna, in its aggregate, contains very numerous collections of every description. The imperial library adjoining the Chateau, passes for the most considerable in Europe; report assigns to it more than 300,000 volumes, (the royal library in Paris has more than 500,000) also a great number of MSS., and of samples in the art of printing, from 1435 to 1500. The apartments wherein these valuable assemblages are deposited, are very suberb, and if there is any thing objectionable, it is the superfluity of gildings, marbles, paintings, and other articles of luxury. The cabinet of antiques and medals is also in the imperial palace, together with the museum of natural history, the present director general of which is M. Schreibers. This establishment is very rich in minerals, many from Hungary, also in shells, marine polypi, &c.

The gallery of paintings at the Belvidere, on the Rennweg, has an immense collection of works of all the different schools; it was first formed by Joseph II., and has been gradually increasing since. There are very capital paintings in the different churches; these have also their mausolea, the most remarkable of which is that erected by duke Albert de Saxe Teschen, in 1805, to the memory of his wife, the archduchess Maria Christina. This monument is in the church of the Augustins, adjoining the palace; it was executed by Canova; the whole has an air of dejection and grief so natural, that the sympathising spectator cannot but follow the figures, slowly moving, as it were, to the tomb.

At a little distance from the Belvidere, in the Rennweg, is the botanic garden, belonging to the university. It is under the management of the baron Jacquin, son of the botanist to whom we are indebted for the Flora of Schonbrunn. The number of rare plants is not very great, but the establishment is very well adapted for the instruction of the students.

Besides the collections of a public character, there are a great number that belong to individuals. Indeed, there are few cities wherein a taste for the arts is more generally diffused among the opulent classes. There are collections of paintings, of statues, of antiquities, but a great deficiency of those in natural history. M. Vondernull has a collection of mineralogy, of which M. Mohs has published a descriptive