The landscape was either a plain, or gently undulating and extremely
well cultivated.
Bohemia resembles Moravia, being an exceedingly rich corn country,
generally open; not many trees about the country near the road side, except
at the Chateau and farm houses. The language is a dialect of the
Sclavonic, mixed with some German; but at the inns there is always one or
two servants who speak German. In Bohemia a traveller not speaking German,
and who has no interpreter with him, would find himself greatly
embarrassed. The Bohemians call themselves in their own language
Cherschky, and the Hungarians call themselves Magyar.
[117] Tasso, Gerusalemme liberata, canto XV, ottave 31, 32:
Un uom della Liguria avra ardimento
All' incognito corao esporsi in prima...
Tu spiegherai, Colombo, a un nuovo polo
Lontane si le fortunate antenne... - ED.
[118] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XL, 31, 1. - ED.
[119] See reference to Eustace p. 131.
[120] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, XXVIII, 38, 7. - ED.
[121] Boileau, Satires, XI, v. 117.
[122] The drama, Der Wold bei Hermannstadt, is the work of Johanna
Fraenul von Weissenthurn (1773-1847), a celebrated Viennese actress
and authoress. An opera was written on the same text by W. Westmeyer,
- ED.
[123] Because I am an Englishman - You are an Englishman? you are certainly
a North-German; you speak very correct German. - Gentlemen, I tell you
I am an Englishman; many English study and speak the German language
and if you had held a long conversation with me, you would soon have
perceived from my faults in speaking, that I am not a German. - But you
have answered our questions so correctly. - Why not, the same questions
have been put to me so often that I have all the necessary answers by
heart like a catechism.
[124] Where is my father?
[125] "You wish to know where your father is? He is under arrest; people
were well disposed to him; but he is placed under arrest, because he
was unruly, and if you are unruly you will be placed under arrest
likewise."
CHAPTER XVII
SEPTEMBER 1818-MARCH 1819
The splendid city of Prague - The German expression, "To give the
basket" - Journey from Prague to Dresden - Journey from Dresden to Berlin - A
description of Berlin - The Prussian Army - Theatricals - Peasants talk about
Napoleon - Prussians and French should be allies - Absurd policy of the
English Tories - Journey from Berlin to Dresden - A description of
Dresden - The battle of Dresden in 1813 - Clubs at Dresden - Theatricals -
German beds - Saxon scholars - The picture gallery - Tobacco an ally of
Legitimacy - Saxon women - Meissen - Unjust policy of Europe towards the King
of Saxony.
PRAGUE, 4 Sept.
Prague is a far more striking and splendid city than Vienna, without its
faubourgs. The streets are broader; and it has a more cheerful and less
confined appearance than the old town of Vienna.
