In consequence of this love of order the Austrians are remarkably neat in their dress, so that you seldom see among them, as in other countries, wretches in rags by the side of elegance and luxury. There is not an Austrian peasant but possesses a decent suit of clothes, boots, and a furred great coat for winter. Enter their habitations and you will find the same neatness and cleanliness which are conspicuous in their habiliments. In these rustic dwellings nothing announces affluence, but on the other hand there is nothing to denote poverty and indigence. When the lower classes of a nation are well dressed, who can doubt its wealth and its prosperity? The Austrians have been generally considered as ceremonious, and as attaching too much importance to the formalities of etiquette. Foreigners have been apt to ridicule them on this account, without reflecting that this adherence to forms and ceremonies is a result of their love of order and decorum. It must nevertheless be confessed that, if etiquette and the forms of politeness are more strictly observed in Germany than in other countries, this is partly owing to the prerogatives enjoyed there by the nobility. Though the line between the classes is much more strongly marked than elsewhere, still there is nothing offensive in that demarcation. The differences of rank are confined to a few court privileges, and the right of admittance to certain assemblies, which afford too little pleasure to deserve much regret. In fact the grandees of Vienna, who are the most magnificent and wealthy in Europe, are so far from abusing the advantages they possess, that in the streets they suffer the meanest vehicles to stop their brilliant equipages. The emperor himself, and his brothers, when they go abroad drive quietly along in the file of hackney-coaches, and take delight to appear in their amusements as private individuals. As to the national character, there is but little opportunity for its development in Austria, since the different nations who inhabit the various provinces of that empire do not form a compact whole, and are not all actuated by the same spirit. Two great causes, however, might give a certain stimulus to the public mind, and also excite patriotism in Austria; these are, the love of the country and of the sovereign; and the felicity which all the inhabitants enjoy under protecting laws. Husbandmen rather than traders, the Austrians are for this very reason more attached to their native soil. The interests of the country are in fact more closely connected with those of the cultivator of the soil, than of the merchant, whose almost only object is the success of his speculations, on which his precarious existence depends. Agriculture is honoured in Austria, and the most illustrious of its princes, as well as the sovereign himself, are fully sensible of its importance to an empire possessing so fertile a soil.