they not wish for fociety, or of extending or narrowing it fhould they defire acquaintance; your visit being always returned immediately, and if you do not vifit in the course of the first month, it is presumed you prefer folitude.

Perhaps this may be an improvement on the plan of England, where every one has free liberty to gratify curiofity, often at the expence of real courtefy, for numbers go once for a well-bred ftare, drink their dish of tea, and Thew they have had enough of you, by never cultivating you unless you happen exactly to Tuit their tafte, which is often the result of their fingularity, or caprice. Whereas, in these countries, you have leifure for previous enquiry; you can felect your acquaintance, and if it is not of the beft kind the place affords, it must be your own fault.

Another inconvenience attending your not being fortified with the language of the country, whether Dutch or German, is the impofition you are liable to, especially on leaving a town or house, where you may have had any running The people you have dealt with pretend to understand you fully when you make your bargain; but when you come to collect your bills, they proteft that you have mistaken them; and this errour is always to their ad

accounts.

vantage.

vantage. For inftance, you agree with furgeon-barber at fo much per month to fhave you, and with a fhoe-boy to clean your boots, &c. You reasonably conclude the price fettled between you includes every thing: but at the end of the month you are charged fo much for putting foap on the face, and fo much for taking it off; fo much for rubbing away the duft from your fhoes, and fo much again for blacking them. Let it be clearly stated, therefore, that, in your country, fhaving and fhoe cleaning mean what they express.

The price of timber in Weftphalia, and the countries that environ it, is amongst the things calculated to furprise an English traveller. A noble fir of between thirty and forty years growth, is thought rather dear at fix florins, about ten fhillings English: and an oak of more than half a century, is rated at about twelve, or at the most fifteen shillings. Inferior wood in proportion. The birch tree is here found in abundance, and contributes much to the beauty of the country, drooping with an air of poetical melancholy, almoft with as much elegant fadnefs as the weeping willow, The natives of Weftphalia tell you, that the juice is good to drink, the foliage good to fee, and the branches good to burn; they feem no lefs fenfible than ourfelves, alfo, that the twigs

1

have other virtues chiefly adapted for the ufe of nurseries and schools.

Simple curiofity is alike in all countries, You remember the account I fent you in my firft fheaf of the aftonishment of an whole family of Cambrian ruftics, at the fight of a fhining fteel watch-chain. I found a companion for this picture of wonderment in the furprife of fome Weftphalia cottagers, who furveyed a common bamboo stick with as much attention and awe, as if it was a wand of enchantment; and feeling the knots with a trembling hand, as if there was magic in every joint,

You will be pleased to hear the universal reputation which is enjoyed by the manufactures of your country. I think I flightly glanced at this fubject before. Whatever is English becomes every where abroad an object of admiration. I have witneffed this in various inftances, but in none more than in the Thapfody which the fight of three pair of EngJifh fhoes produced in an honeft cobler of a hittle town in Pruffia.

Thefe articles, neat as imported from LonHop, lay upor my table juft unpacked, as this child

child of nature entered my room to receive orders for a trifling repair in my boots. He incontinently caught up one of the fhoes, and for fome minutes was too much abforbed in wonder to speak. He turned the shoe about in filent admiration; felt the fole, which his look denoted was of the beft leather poffibleexamined the ftitching, the form, the elegance, the folidity, the fimplicity, the lightness, the ftraps, the quarters, fitted it to his hand; as he did which he shewed signs of the most perfect approbation-then by way of comparison, held it down to his own fhoe, and as he did fo, gave teftimony of the most ineffable contempt, even for his own performance, which was, perhaps, the highest compliment that could be paid to the performance of another. His features, and action, had actually all the force of Hamlet's parallel of the old Fortinbras his father, and the ufurper:

"Look but on this picture and on this, &c. !"

His phifiognomy teftified that his work was no more to compare to the British Crifpin's

" Than he to Hercules!”

It was long before he could attend indeed to any thing refpecting himself, and after his rhapfody fubfided a little, he feemed to under

take even the cobbling art of taking up a few loose stitches in an English boot with reluct

ance..

Nor does our country triumph in this handycraft fame without the beft-founded pretenfions, fince in every article of workmanship we cast them at a distance that rather gives the fenfation of defpair than energy. Doors, windows, their ornaments, their neceffaries, their comforts, their finishing, their application, their fitnefs, their buildings, their elegance, all yield the palm to the fuperior arts of the British artificer. And if there is a general rule without an exception, I am, from very long and diligent fcrutiny, inclined to think it lies in the unrivalled excellence of our manufactures in the comforts and conveniences of life.

You have heard numberlefs anecdotes of the late Pruffian monarch. A ftronger idea of his insatiable military ambition cannot be well given, than in his exclaiming to one of his officers while furveying the profpect from his chateau at Cleves; " very fine, to be fure, noble woods, pretty gardens, fair towns, well-filled rivers, and all that, but I can never think it a good profpect while any part of the objects it includes is the property of another fovereign!”

I will