would be a pity to let the opportunity slip. So I ordered my trunk aboard.-We had a disagreeable passage: -However, I arrived safe a few days ago at Harwich, After this sketch of poor C's turn of mind, you see, I have no reason to fear his remaining long with us, if he should come.

Foreigners assert that the English have more of this restless disposition than any other people in Europe.

Il faut que votre ville de Londres soit un triste séjour.I asked the person who made this remark to me, wherefore he thought so?-Parceque, answered he, tous vos jeunes gens que je vois en France s'ennuyent à la mort.-But, said I, there are a great many of your countrymen in London. Assurément, answered he, with polite insolence, cela fait une différence.

Our climate is accused of producing this ennui. If I rightly remember, I formerly hinted some reasons against this opinion, and of late I begin to suspect that the excessive wealth of certain individuals, and the state of society in our capital, are the sole causes of our having a greater share of that malady among us than our neighbours. The common people of England know nothing of it :neither do the industrious of any rank, whether their object be wealth, knowledge, or fame. But in England there is a greater number than in any other country, of young men, who come to the possession of great fortunes before they have acquired any fixed and determined taste, which may serve as a resource and occupation through life.

When a youth has acquired a habit of application, a thirst of knowledge, or of fame, the most ample fortune which can fall to him afterwards, cannot always destroy dispositions and passions already formed.-Particularly if the passion be ambition, which generally gives such ener gy to the mind, and occasions such continued exertions, as sufficiently ward off lassitude and tedium; for wealth cannot lull, or pleasure enervate, a mind strongly inspired by that active principle. Such therefore are out of the present question. But when a full and uncontrolled com

mand of money comes first, and every object of pleasure is placed within the reach of the unambitious, all other pursuits are too frequently despised; and every taste or accomplishment which could inform or strengthen the mind, and fill up the tedious intervals of life, is neglected. A young man in this situation is he to excess; prone seldom waits the natural returns of appetite of any

kind;

-his sensibility is blunted by too frequent enjoyment ;what is desired to-day, is lothed to-morrow :-every thing at a distance, which bears the name of pleasure, is an object of desire;-when present, it becomes an object of indifference, if not of disgust.-The agitations of gaming are tried to prevent the horrid stagnation of indolence :-All amusements lose their relish, and serve to increase the languor they were meant to expel.

As age advances, caprice, peevishness, and tedium augment :-The scene is often changed; but the same fretful piece is constantly acted till the curtain is dropt, or is pulled down by the impatient actor himself before the natural end of the drama.

Does not all this happen in France and Germany?— Doubtless; but not so often as in England, for the reasons already mentioned. In France, a very small proportion of young men have the uncontrolled possession of great fortunes. They have not the means of gratifying every desire, and indulging every caprice. Instead of spending their time in clubs or taverns with people of their own age, the greater part of the young nobility pass their evenings with some private family, or in those societies of both sexes to which they have the entrée. There the decorum due to such company restrains, of course, the vivacity and wantonness of their behaviour and conversation; and adventures occur which interest and amuse, without being followed by the nausea, languor, and remorse, which often succeed nights spent at the gaming-table, or the licentiousness of tavern suppers.

Nothing has a better influence on the temper, disposition, and manners of a young person, then living much

in the company of those whom he respects. Exclusive of the improvement he may receive from their conversation, he is habituated to self-denial, and must relinquish many indulgences which lead to indolence and languor.

The young French nobility, even although they should have no great share of ambition, no love of study, no particular turn for any of those higher accomplishments which enable men to pass the hours of life independent of other amusements; yet they contrive to keep tedium at a distance by efforts of a different kind, by a species of activi ty peculiar to themselves: They perceive, very early in life, the absolute necessity of pleasing; this sentiment pervades their general conduct, and goes a great way in the formation of their real character. They are attentive and obliging to all, and particularly endeavour to acquire and retain the friendship of those who can assist their fortunes; and they have a relish for life, because it is not always in their power to anticipate enjoyment, nor can they cloy their appetites by satiety. Even the most dissipated among them are unacquainted with the unbounded freedom of a tavern life, where all the freaks of a whimsical mind, and a capricious taste, may be indulged without hesitation, and which, after long indulgence, renders every other kind of society insupportable.

With regard to the Germans, there are very few men of great independent fortunes among them. The little princes, by whom the riches of the country are engrossed, have, I suspect, their own difficulties to get through life with any tolerable degree of satisfaction. As for their younger brothers and the middling gentry, they go into the army, and are subjected to the rigorous and unremitting attentions of military discipline. This, of consequence, forms a character, in many respects different from that of the English or French gentleman.

But I have not yet mentioned the circumstance which, of all others, perhaps contributes the most to render London the triste séjour which foreigners often find it; I mean the establishment of clubs, from which that part of the

community are excluded who have the greatest power to sooth the cares, and enliven the pleasures of life.

LETTER LXXXV.

Vienna.

WE had an invitation lately from Mons. de Breteuil to dine on the top of Mount Calenberg, a very high mountain in the neighbourhood of this city. Common coaches or chariots cannot be dragged up; but having driven to the bottom, we found chaises of a particular construction, calculated for such expeditions. These had been ordered by the ambassador for the accommodation of the company, and in them we were carried to the summit, where there is a convent of monks, from which two landscapes of very opposite natures appear. The one consists of a series of wild mountains; the other, of the town, suburbs, and environs of Vienna, with the various branches of the Danube flowing through a rich champaign of boundless extent.

The table for dinner was covered in a field near the convent, under the shade of some trees.-Every delicacy of the season was served up.- -Madame de Matignon, a very beautiful and sprightly lady, daughter of M. de Breteuil, did the honours.-Some of the finest women of Vienna, her companions, were of the company; and the whole entertainment was conducted with equal taste and gaiety.

During the desert, some of the fathers came and presented the company with baskets of fruit and sallad from their garden. The ambassador invited them to sit, and the ladies pledged them in tokay. Mons. de Breteuil had previously obtained permission for the ladies to enter the convent; which they accordingly did, as soon as they rose from table, attended by all the company.

You will readily believe, that the appearance of so many handsome women would be particularly interesting to a community which had never before beheld a female within

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their walls. This indeed was sufficiently evident, in spite of the gravity and mortified looks of the fathers.

One lady of a gay disposition laid hold of a little scourge which hung at one of the father's belts, and desired he would make her a present of it, for she wished to use it when she returned home, having, as she said, been a great sinner.The father, with great gallantry, begged she would spare her own fair skin, assuring her that he would give himself a hearty flogging on her account that very evening;-and to prove how much he was in earnest, fell directly on his knees before a little altar, and began to whip his own shoulders with great earnestness, declaring, that when the ladies should retire, he would lay it with the same violence on his naked body; for he was determined she would be as free from sin as she was on the day of her birth.

This melted the heart of the lady.-She begged the father might take no more of her faults upon his shoulders.

-She now assured him that her slips had been very venial, and that she was convinced what he had already done would clear her as completely as if he should whip himself to the bone.

There is something so ludicrous in all this, that you may naturally suspect the representation I have given, proceeds from invention rather than memory. I assure you, however, in downright earnest, that the scene passed nearly as described; and, to prevent farther mischief, I put the scourge, which the zealous father had made use of, in my pocket.

On my return to Vienna, I called the same evening at the countess Walstein's, and soon after the emperor came there. Somebody had already mentioned to him the pious gallantry of the father at the top of Mount Calenberg. He asked for a sight of the whip, which he understood I had brought away :-I had it still in my pocket, and immediately shewed it him.--He laughed very heartily at the warmth of the father's zeal, which he sup posed had been augmented by the ambassador's tokay,