had displayed her taste by decorating one of her little cabinets with engravings from some of the exquisite productions of Westall.

The next morning (Sunday) we attended the two parades, which take place on this day within two hours of each other; I should suppose about ten thousand men were upon the ground; they presented a very noble appearance. The King, attended by several officers, was present. In roving through the city, we observed that its size and buildings resembled those of Berlin, and that it was equally gloomy.

Upon our return, a soldier mounted the coach-box of the diligence at the gate at Berlin, and as we passed close to our inn, we called to the driver to let us out, but the soldier refused, and upon our attempting to get out, jumped down, drew his bayonet, and called the guard, upon which, with some little surprise, we submitted to be taken to the posthouse, at the further end of the city, where we were suffered to alight without further molestation. This regulation is a part of the military police of this despotic government, which converts every city into barracks, and palaces into head quarters. Upon regaining our hotel, cold and hungry, and ordering our dinner, we found that the cooks, it being dimanche, were all gone to the theatre: however, one of them was soon found, and our appetites soon satisfied.

On the 5th of November, at eleven o'clock in the morning, as I wished to see a little more of the manners of the people, I mounted the Hamburgh diligence, and proceeded in it as far as Grabow, and afterwards travelled post to Husum: this machine was much inferior to its Potsdam brother; it was a leather tilted waggon without springs, filled with rows of seats, separated from each other by iron bars; behind was a basket for hay: there were neither glasses nor wooden pannels in the sides, but two hard leather curtains were dropped and buttoned down, when it rained or was cold. The passengers consisted of two Prussian ladies, a girl servant, an Hungarian officer, myself, and one conducteur, an old wrinkled gentleman of sixty-five at least, who lost all his vivacity when he set down the girl, between whom some tender touches of the hand, and gentle whispers, passed during one of the most bitter nights I ever experienced. The ladies, who were neither handsome nor aged, and were, as I learned, very respectable women, made no hesitation in tying up their garters, sans ceremonie, and, in other matters of travelling comfort, displayed as little restraint as the French ladies. All night, it being dark, and the roads very deep and sandy, we moved at a funereal pace. The next evening I bade adieu to the Hamburgh diligence, and having convinced myself of the danger of attempting to push through that spit of Hanover through which the direct Hamburgh road lies, in consequence of the ruffian-like perfidious violation of the law of nations,

MECKLEBURGH SWERIN.

477

exhibited in the seizure of our ambassador, Sir George Rumbold, at that city, I ordered a stuhl-waggon at Perlberg, and travelled post to Swerin, the capital of the duchy of Meckleburgh Swerin, which commences on this side at Grabow. In this petty state, luxuriant in corn fields, posting, which constitutes one of the revenues of the duchy, is very dear; for five German miles I paid seven dollars and two groschen. To avoid this extortion, I recommend a traveller to hire a Furhman at Perlberg to carry him through to Lubec: he will save considerably by it. A little beyond Grabow I passed a superb country residence of the reigning Duke, situated in a beautiful country, and surrounded by a very neat village. Swerin is a large and respectable town, where the inns are very good, and well supplied with French spies. The palace is a vast and very ancient building, forming an oblong square, presenting galleries, balconies, and turrets, without end. The soldiers on duty were fine-looking fellows; the forces of the Duke amount to fourteen hundred men. I could not help smiling when, upon discharging my driver at this town, he presented me, with great ceremony, a government receipt, to shew that he had paid two groschen for permission to pass over a nearer and better road, which led from the country palace of the Duke. The Malaga wine, of which a great quantity is brought to this duchy, is excellent and reasonable.

The approach to Lubec was through a noble road, lined

with stately lindens, extending four English miles: it was dusk when I entered it, and early in the morning when I left it; but, if I may judge by its avenues, gates, and streets, I should pronounce it to be a very beautiful, extensive, and wealthy city. It has a small surrounding territory, and is at present independent; but strong fears may be entertained that, following the example of Dantzig, its sovereignty is nearly at a close, and that it will speedily be incorporated with Hanoverian France. Through every town to Husum I was obliged to give my name and quality. An English humourist, who had by virtue of his freehold a parliamentary vote in the municipal county, upon being stopped at the gate of a town in some part of Germany, throughout which empire an elector is considered as a personage only inferior to the Emperor, and upon his name being demanded, replied, "Je suis un Electeur de "Middlesex;" upon which the captain ordered the guard to turn out and salute him, and sent a company to follow the carriage to the inn, and attend him there, and paid him all the honours due to an electoral Prince. The delusion was easily carried on, for princes, even crowned heads in Germany, and various other parts of the continent, trouble themselves but little about equipage. The venerable and gallant Prince de Ligne, whom I have before named, a Prince of great rank and dignity, under the pressure of seventy years, travelled from Vienna to Berlin, a distance of seven hundred English miles, in an open common stuhl-waggon. After

waiting a few days at Husum, where, like the hunted hare, I returned to the spot I first started from, during which two French spies dined every day at our table d'hote, and gave regular communications of the arrival of every Englishman at the nearest Hanoverian posts, I went on board the packet, which narrowly escaped being frozen in the river, and after encountering a severe gale, during which our only consolation resembled that of Gonzalo in the Tempest, who observed of his captain, "That he seemed to have no drown"ing mark upon him," we crossed the north seas in fortysix hours, and landed upon the shores of that beloved country which, uneclipsed by any superior in arms, in arts, or in sciences; and without a rival in commerce, in agriculture, or in riches; possesses more religion and morality, more humanity and munificence, more public and private integrity, is more blest with freedom, more enlightened by eloquence, more adorned with beauty, more graced with chastity, and richer in all the requisites to form that least assuming, but first of earthly blessings, domestic comfort, than any nation upon the globe.

If, my Reader! after having paid our homage to the merits of other countries, we return together, with more settled admiration, to that which has given us birth, I shall the less regret my absence from her, and from those who are the dearest