An interesting variety of this entertainment was witnessed by Dr. Bright. In the midst of a brilliant assembly, the folding-doors of another room were suddenly thrown open, and what appeared to be a beautiful collection of wax-figures was displayed to the delighted eye. They were placed on pedestals, in recesses, or in groups around the room. They represented heathen deities, or the gnomes and fairies with which the poets have peopled the regions of imagination, with all their emblematical accompaniments, and their dresses, which were selected with the greatest taste. These figures were represented by persons whom nature had favoured in a distinguished manner; they preserved an unmoved firmness of attitude, and nothing interrupted the illusion they intended to create but the animation of their eyes, and the smile which sometimes dimpled the cheek even of the rooted Daphne. To assert that this exhibition was beautiful were to degrade its charms; it seemed to throw a magic spell over the spectators, and the great difficulty was to induce them to retire when it was actually necessary to relieve the figures from the painful position in which they stood.
The houses of Vienna are in general rather small than large; the palaces of the grandees alone being spacious. Most of the houses are of brick or wood covered with slate, and some with shingles. As a measure of precaution, however, the police forbids the use of the latter; so that whenever a house is repaired it must be roofed with slate or tiles. The houses in the city only are from four to six stories high: those of the suburbs occupy more ground but are not so lofty. Here the mansions of the great, of very simple and sometimes very whimsical architecture, have handsome gardens attached to them. The interior is not so commodiously arranged as it might be. The walls are more commonly painted in fresco than papered. The furniture is not in general costly, excepting in the palaces of princes or the mansions of bankers or wealthy merchants, whose opulence enables them to command all the elegances as well as the conveniences of life. Simplicity, neatness and perfect cleanliness, which are far to be preferred to tawdry magnificence, are every where observable.