she starts suddenly out of the dangerous track, and plunges into the description of an opera and a German comedy. Here she is perfectly at her ease; and the coarseness of the subject, which she affects to condemn, so evidently delights her, that she describes in the broadest terms an action the most outrageously gross, perhaps, that was ever endured on the stage.
It has often been remarked, that the interest of a book of travels arises not so much from the newness and strangeness of the objects described, as from the peculiar light which is reflected upon them from the mind of the traveller. This fact is strikingly exemplified in the case of Lady Mary, who, though journeying through places often visited, throws so much of energy and vivacity, and frequently of novelty, into her concise yet minute sketches, that we never pause to inquire whether the objects delineated now come before us for the first time or not. Besides, her sex and the advantages she enjoyed brought many peculiarities both of costume and manners within the range of her observation, of which ordinary travellers can know nothing, except from hearsay, or from points of view too distant to admit of accurate observation. Upon her being presented at court she was struck—as who would not?—by the extravagant appearance of the ladies, who stalked about with fabrics of gauze and ribands a yard high upon their heads, and whalebone petticoats, which with pleasant exaggeration she describes as covering whole acres of ground. The reigning empress perfectly enraptured her with her beauty; and her admiration supplies her with so much eloquence, that a complete picture is wrought out. In other respects the court of Vienna was very much like other contemporary courts—that is, overflowing with every variety of moral turpitude, except that the Viennais had not the hypocrisy to pretend to be virtuous.
From this city our traveller made an excursion into Bohemia, the most desert part of Germany, where the characteristics of the villages were filth and poverty, scarcely furnishing clean straw and pure water, and where the inns were so wretched that she preferred travelling all night in the month of November to the idea of encountering the many unsavoury smells which they abounded with. In this country, however, she made but a short stay, but proceeded across the Erz Gebirge mountains into Saxony. This part of the journey was performed by night. The moonlight was sufficiently brilliant to discover the nature of the frightful precipices over which the road lay, and which in many places was so narrow that she could not discover an inch of space between the wheel and the precipice, while the waters of the Elbe rolled along among the rocks at an immeasurable depth below. Mr. Wortley, who possessed none of the restless sensibility or curiosity of his wife, and preferred a comfortable doze to the pleasure of gazing at moonlit crags throwing their giant shadows over fathomless abysses, or of discussing the chances of their being hurled into some of these gulfs, composed himself to sleep, and left our traveller to her reflections. For some time she resisted all temptation to disturb him; but observing that the postillions had begun to follow his example, while the horses were proceeding at full gallop, she thought it high time to make the whole party sensible of their danger, and by calling out to the drivers, awakened her husband. He was now alarmed at their critical situation, and assured her that he had five times crossed the Alps by different routes, without having ever seen so dangerous a road; but perhaps he had not been awakened by his companions.