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Drefden has a proud appearance, and offers on all fides a magnificent objeft 5 it isbeyond all companion the fined city which I have yet feen in Germany . The homesare built in a much better fade than thole of Vienna , and the eye is quite dazzled withthe long and magnificent appearance of the bridge over the Elbe . This river, wh;ch atfome diftance from the city is confined within very narrow bounds, widens by degreesas you approach, and is here a powerful dream, which befpeaks all the magnificence ofthe town and date. The hills oppofite to the Lawfmfs have a mod magnificent appear-ance and the mountains on both fides the river, partly naked and partly planted withvineyards, form an uncommonly beautiful perspective.
The manners and way of living of thefe people is as oppofite to what I have hithertofeen in Germany , as the beauty of thefe dreets, and the tade difplayed in the buildings,is different from Suabia, Bavaria, Audria, and Bohemia . Finer lhapes, more animatedcountenances, eafier and lefs condrained motions, general courtefy, univerfal cleanlinefs,are the features which immediately offer themfelves to obfervation, and mud drike everyone who comes into this country by the fame route which I purfued.
It was in an unfortunate moment that the fortifications about this town were fird built,but it is more unfortunate dill, that indead of pulling them entirely down, thofe who areconcerned are at this inftant employed in repairing them. Commanded as this city is,from every fide, and with no reafonable expectations, in its prefent fituation, of everbeing able to preferve a neutrality on the breaking out of any war betwixt the King ofPruflia and the Audrians, it is more than any other in danger of being plundered andlaid wade. Indeed one would have imagined that the devaftations of the years 1758and 1760, were dill fredi enough in every man’s memory to have been a warning tothe regency.
The town does not feem to be peopled in proportion to the quantity of ground itdands on. The number of inhabitants is generally edimated at dfty thoufand, whichmany think too high. The fa ft is, that it has loft a third of its inhabitants fince thebreaking out of the laft Silefian war, and the death of King Auguftus.
The drangers who knew this city before this asra, cannot fay enough of the differencethere now is, a difference not fo much arifing from the misfortunes of war, as from thececonomy of the court, which has followed clofe on the didipation of other times.' Inthe late Eleftor’s time, this court was perhaps the mod brilliant in Europe . The courtband of mufic, the opera, and the dancers alone, were fuppofed to cod the Eleftor an-nually 300,000 Saxon guilders, or upwards of 780,000 French livres. His table, hisdables, and his hunters, were all in the fame dyle of expence. Strangers uied to flowhither from all countries, to be partakers in this magnificence, and Drefden was the ren-dezvous of the north for tade and redned living. The numerous followers of the court,and the great number of drangers, occaftoned a very extendve circulation of money,and made all the arts alive. In the midd of this profudon debts were contracted, butthey gave the Eleftor little concern, as is evident from the following anecdote. One.night at the opera, having a fire-work, which was part of the decoration of a temple,and ufed to cod feveral hundred thalers, he called for his chamberlain, and defired toknow the reafon of the omiffion; the' chamberlain told him, that the heathen gods andgoddeffes mud for this night be contented with a dre of twenty or thirty guilders, asthere was no money left in the treafury to pay for any thing more fplendid. ThePleftor was compelled to acquiefce for the moment, as it was too late for him to dootherwife, but he gave drift orders, that in the next reprefentadon, and in every fuc-ceeding one, the whole fum of thalers fhould be burnt out. A court which is mounted°n this ton is feldom poffeffed of a finji and found government.
vol. vi. u The