In accumulation of ornaments one hopes to find elegance, and in rejection of superfluity there is dignity of sentiment; but nothing can excuse a sovereign prince for keeping as curiosities worthy a traveller’s attention, a heap of trumpery fit to furnish out the shop of a Westminster pawnbroker. Our cabinet of rarities here is literally no better than twenty old country gentlemen’s seats, situated in the distant provinces of England, shew to the servants of a neighbouring family upon a Christmas visit, when the housekeeper is in good humour, and, gently wiping the dust off my _late lady’s mother’s_ amber-boxes, produces forth the wax figures of my lord John and my lord Robert when _babies_. For this pitiable exhibition, ships cut in paper, and saints carved in wood, we paid half a guinea each; not gratuity to the person who has them in charge, but tax imposed by the government. Every house here is obliged to maintain so many soldiers, excepting such and such only who have the word _free_ written over their doors; here seem to be no people in the town almost except soldiers though; so they naturally command whatever is to be had. Most nations begin and end with a _military_ dominion, as red is commonly the first and last colour obtained by the chymist in his various experiments upon artificial tints. This state is yet young, and many things in it not quite come to their full growth, so we must not be rigorous in our judgments. I have seen the library, in which we were for the first time shewn what is confidently _said_ to be an Æthiopian manuscript, and such it certainly may be for aught I know. What interested me much more was our Tonson’s _Cæsar_, a book remarkable for having been written by the first hero and general in the world perhaps, dedicated to the second, and possessed by the third. Here is an exceeding perfect collection of all Hogarth’s prints.
This city appears to be a very wholesome one; the houses are not high to confine the air between them, or drive it forward in currents upon the principle of Paris or Vienna; the streets are few, but long, straight, and wide; ground has not been spared in its construction, which seems a most judicious one; and with this well-earned praise I am most willing to quit it. It is the first place of any consequence I have felt in a hurry to run away from; for till now there have been _some_ attractions in every town; something that commanded veneration or invited fondness; something pleasing in its society, or instructive in its history. It would however be sullen enough to feel no agreeable sensation in seeing this child of the present century come to age so: the tomb of its author is the object of our present curiosity, which will be gratified to-morrow.