POPULATION.  STREETS AND FOUNTAINS.  CHURCHES.  CONVENTS.  PALACES.  THEATRES.  THE PRATER.  THE EMPEROR’S PRIVATE LIBRARY.  COLLECTION OF DUKE ALBERT.  SUBURBS.  MONASTERY OF CLOSTERNEUBURG.  DEPARTURE FROM VIENNA.

Vienna, September 18, 1818.

My dear friend;

“Extremum hunc—­mihi concede laborem.”  In other words, I shall trouble you for the last time with an epistle from the Austrian territories:  at any rate, with the last communication from the capital of the empire.  Since my preceding letter, I have stirred a good deal abroad:  even from breakfast until a late dinner hour.  By the aid of a bright sky, and a brighter moon, I have also visited public places of entertainment; for, having completed my researches at the library, I was resolved to devote the mornings to society and sights out of doors.  I have also made a pleasant day’s trip to the MONASTERY of CLOSTERNEUBURG—­about nine English miles from hence; and have been led into temptation by the sight of some half dozen folios of a yet more exquisite condition than almost any thing previously beheld.  I have even bought sundry tomes, of monks with long bushy beards, in a monastery in the suburbs, called the ROSSAU; and might, if I had pleased, have purchased their whole library—­covered with the dust and cobwebs of at least a couple of centuries.

As, in all previous letters, when arrived at a new capital, I must begin the present by giving you some account of the population, buildings, public sights, and national character of the place in which I have now tarried for the last three weeks; and which—­as I think I observed at the conclusion of my first letter from hence—­was more characteristic of English fashions and appearances than any thing before witnessed by me ... even since my landing at Dieppe.  The CITY of VIENNA may contain a population of 60,000 souls; but its SUBURBS, which are thirty-three in number, and I believe the largest in Europe, contain full three times that number of inhabitants.[134] This estimate has been furnished me by M. Bartsch, according to the census taken in 1815.  Vienna itself contains 7150 houses; 123 palaces; and 29 Catholic parishes; 17 convents, of which three are filled by Religieuses; one Protestant church; one of the reformed persuasion; two churches of the united Greek faith, and one of the Greek, not united.[135] Of synagogues, I should think there must be a great number; for even Judaism seems, in this city, to be a thriving and wealthy profession.  Hebrew bibles and Hebrew almanacks are sufficiently common.  I bought a recent impression of the former, in five crown octavo volumes, neatly bound in sheep skin, for about seven shillings of our money; and an atlas folio sheet of the latter for a penny.  You meet with Jews every where:  itinerant and stationary.  The former, who seem to be half Jew and half Turk, are great frequenters of hotels, with boxes full of trinkets and caskets.