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RIESBECk’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANV. 69

In cafe of a fiege, the diftance betwixt the town and fuburbs would give the befiegei'3great advantages but it is very unlikely that fuch a circuinltance fhould evdr happen*Ihe lurks have been the only peeple in modern times, who could carry their wars tothe gates of the capital, a thing which .the King of Pruflia did not dare attempt, after themoll! fuccefsful battle. At prefent the ftrength of the Imperial houfe is fo fuperior tothat of the Porte, that I believe the prefent court keeps up the fortifications, only withthe view of keeping the city itfelf in fubjeftion. Another reafon indeed, may be affigned,which is the ruin that would fall upon feveral families, who fubfift entirely by lettingtheir houfes, if the value of them was to link one half, which it would certainly do, ifthe empty fpace before the city was to be built upon. As things now are, there arefeveral habitations worth from 2 to 300,000 guilders, or from 20 to 30,000 pounds * perannum, which conflitutes the whole fortune of their pofleffors. Any man who is out ofdebt, and has a houfe in this city, is accounted a rich man. The houfe of the book-feller Trattnem is an objed of 30,000 guilders (or 3000I. a year) to hitn. The advan-tages that would accrue, in point of health and convenience, by carrying the city on tothe fuburbs, and by that means thinning the choaked up habitations, would not makeamends for what thofe who have houfes muff unavoidably fuffer by the change.

Within thefe few days I have begun my ufual circle in and about the city, in order tobe able to form to myfelf an idea of its feparate parts. It takes up almoft two hours togo from the end of the fuburb of Wieden to the end of the fuburb of Leopold, whichis larger than the town, and parted from it only by a fmall arm of the Danube . Thegoing from the fuburb Roffaw to the end of the fuburb Landftrafle, took me up aboutanother half hour. Vienna certainly Hands upon much more ground than Paris does*.It has twenty-fix fuburbs; but many parts of them are not built upon, and about a thirdof them is occupied by three or four hundred gardens, not above three or four of whichtare worth feeing. The fuburbs bell inhabited are the Rofifaw, the Jofephftadt, St. TJlrich,Mariahilp, a part of the Wieden, and the Leopoldftadt. The larged of them all, afterthe Leopoldftadt, is the Wieden, the inhabitants of which have a great refemblance tothofe of the fuburb St. Marcel at Paris .

There are fcarce eight buildings in the whole town which can be called beautiful ormagnificent. The molt diftinguilhed of thefe are the palace of Lichtenftein, the Em-peror ’s library, and the chancery.

f l’he Emperor ’s palace is an old black building, that has neither beauty nor ftatelinefs.It is a great mafs of ftone, which was built feven (lories high, in order to contain asmany inhabitants as poffible. There are hardly three fquares, or places here whichm k ■ any figure at all. The greateft thoroughfare is from the Emperor ’s palace overthe Coal-market , the Graben, the Slockameifenplafs, and through the Camthnerjiraffe ••In all thefe places, particularly in the narrow and irregular Stockameifenplafs, the tho-roughfare is as great, and the motion as lively, as in. any ftreet of London or Paris .The dream of this great concourfe reaches as far as Leopoldfgate, and throughout the

whole of the high ftreet of the fuburb of Leopold.-There are not more than eight

buildings worth looking at in the fuburbs; and the tafteof the buildings about the gar-dens, and the lummer-houfes, is miferable.

According to the common report of thofe from whom one has a right to expect ac-curate accounts of their native country, the population of Vienna amounts to at lead amillion. Bufching, in his georaphy, will hardly allow, it to pafs two hundred thoufand*.In my opinion the public and the geographer are equally midaken. In the lad year,which was not remarkably fatal, according to the bills of mortality, the number of the.

* Surely a miftake. The guilder is 13. 9<f.

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