What shall I say of Vienna? Nothing, or next to nothing. I lingered within its walls a week, and no more. I ranged its streets, visited its galleries, lounged through its palaces, its public gardens, and its temples. I stood among the coffins in the vault of the chapel of the Capuchins, where rest the ashes of the Imperial family; I gazed long and fondly, in that of the Augustines, on Canova's exquisite monument to Maria Christina of Saxony. I observed, not without a feeling of pardonable pride, that the Armoury, which is arranged with great taste and skill, contains trophies from almost every European nation, England alone excepted. I saw the chain with which the Turks, in 1529, endeavoured to obstruct the navigation of the Danube. I beheld the innumerable curiosities which are contained in the Arsenal, and lived among the knights and heroes of the middle ages, while gazing on the splendid suits of armour which the Ambras Museum contains. There is no public place which I did not visit, from the Volksgarten to the Prater;--no conspicuous building, beneath the roof of which I failed to enter, from the cathedral to the Invaliden Haus;--no palace which I did not inspect, from that of the Schweitzer Hof to Schönbrunn. Yet I will not describe any of them. Why? Because the task has been executed so recently, and so well, that nothing could proceed from me save idle repetition; and I do not think that to indulge in such would either redound to my own credit, or add to the edification of my readers.
Of the state of society in this great capital, again, I am not competent to form an opinion. I saw but the exterior of things,--the busy marts, the crowded streets, the shops more capacious and better stocked than any, except those of London, and perhaps of Paris. The music of the bands that played in the public gardens was familiar to me, as well as the countenances and bearing of the joyous throng that listened to them. But of the habits of the individuals who composed these throngs, as they showed themselves within the domestic circle, I can say nothing. I was told, indeed, that the ties of moral obligation are not very rigidly regarded in Vienna; that, with much polish, and all the charms of high-breeding about it, society is, in fact, exceedingly corrupt. This may or may not be true; but to me the single aspect which the Austrian capital wore, was of a vast assemblage of people, whose great business it seemed to be to render life agreeable, and its events, in whatever order they might occur, as free from annoyance as possible.