LETTER LII.

Frankfort.

Several individuals here are fond of distinguishing themselves by their passion for the fine arts, and strangers are informed, that it is well worth while to visit certain private collections of paintings which are to be seen at Frankfort.

You know I am no connoisseur; and if I were, should not take up your time in describing them, or giving a criticism on their subject. For though I have seen them, you have not; and nothing, in my opinion, can be more unintelligible and tiresome to the Reader, than criticisms on paintings which he has not seen. I shall only observe, that as all these collections have acquired the esteem and approbation of the proprietors, which I presume was the chief end of their creation, they are certainly intitled to respect from every unconcerned spectator.—— One of them in particular must be very valuable, on account of the prodigious sum of money which the present possessor was offered for it, and which he refused as inadequate to its worth; though the sum offered would have at once made the gentleman easy in his circumstances, which, I am sorry to say, is far from being the case. This anecdote cannot be doubted, for I had it from his own mouth.

It is still more the fashion here to form cabinets of natural curiosities. Besides the repositories of this kind, which are to be seen at the courts of the princes, many individuals all over Germany have Museums in their houses, and strangers cannot pay their court better, than by requesting permission to see them. This would be an easy piece of politeness, if the stranger were allowed to take a view, and walk away when he thought proper. But the misfortune is, that the proprietor attends on these occasions, and gives the history of every piece of ore, petrifaction, fossil-wood, and monster that is in the collection. And as this lecture is given gratis, he assumes the right of making it as long as he pleases: so that requesting a sight of a private collection of natural curiosities, is a more serious matter than people are aware of.

The D—— of H—— has brought himself into a scrape, out of which I imagine it will be difficult to extricate him. Being unacquainted with the trouble which these gentlemen give themselves on such occasions, he has expressed an inclination to three or four virtuosi to see their cabinets. I attended him on his first visitation yesterday. The gentleman made an unusual exertion to please his Grace. He said, being fully convinced of his taste for natural philosophy, in which people of his high rank were never deficient, he would therefore take pleasure to explain every particular in the collection with the greatest deliberation. He had kept himself disengaged the whole forenoon on purpose, and had given orders not to be interrupted. He then descanted on each particular in the collection, with such minuteness and perseverance, as completely satiated His Grace’s curiosity, and gave him such a knowledge of earths, crystals, agates, pyrites, marcasites, petrifactions, metals, semi-metals, &c. &c. as will, I dare swear, serve him for the rest of his life.

Cassel.

I began this letter at Frankfort, not suspecting that our departure would be so sudden. But as the day approached on which we had been promised the sight of another cabinet of curiosities, I found the D——’s impatience to be gone increase every moment. So sending our apology to the proprietors of two or three which he had asked permission to visit, we passed one day with Madame de Barkhause’s family, and another with Mr. Gogle’s, and then bidding a hasty adieu to our other acquaintances at Frankfort, we set out for this place. We slept the first night at Marburg, and on the second, about midnight, arrived at Cassel.

As the ground is quite covered with snow, the roads bad, and the posts long, we were obliged to take six horses for each chaise, which, after all, in some places moved no faster than a couple of hearses. The D—— bore this with wonderful serenity, contemplating the happy evasion he had made from the cabinets at Frankfort. A slave who had escaped from the mines could not have shown greater satisfaction. His good humour remained proof against all the phlegm and obstinacy of the German postillions, of which one who has not travelled in the extremity of the winter, and when the roads are covered with snow, through this country, can form no idea.

The contrast of character between the French and Germans is strongly illustrated in the behaviour of the postillions of the two countries.

A French postillion is generally either laughing, or fretting, or singing, or swearing, all the time he is on the road. If a hill or a bad road oblige him to go slow, he will of a sudden fall a cracking his whip above his head for a quarter of an hour together, without rhyme or reason; for he knows the horses cannot go a bit faster, and he does not intend they should. All this noise and emotion, therefore, means nothing; and proceeds entirely from that abhorrence of quiet which every Frenchman sucks in with his mother’s milk.

A German postillion, on the contrary, drives four horses with all possible tranquillity. He neither sings, nor frets, nor laughs: he only smokes;—and when he comes near a narrow defile, he sounds his trumpet to prevent any carriage from entering at the other end till he has got through. If you call to him to go faster, he turns about, looks you in the face, takes his pipe from his mouth, and says, Yaw, Mynher;—yaw, yaw; and then proceeds exactly in the same pace as before. He is no way affected whether the road be good or bad; whether it rains, or shines, or snows:—And he seems to be totally regardless of the people whom he drives, and equally callous to their reproach or applause. He has one object of which he never loses sight, which is, to conduct your chaise and the contents from one post to another, in the manner he thinks best for himself and the horses. And unless his pipe goes out (in which case he strikes his flint and rekindles it), he seems not to have another idea during the whole journey.

Your best course is to let him take his own way at first, for it will come to that at last.—All your noise and bluster are vain.

Non vultus instantis tyranni

Mente quatit solida, neque Auster

Dux inquieti turbidus Adriæ,

Nec fulminantis magna Jovis manus.