This day Mr. Paget and I by the direction of his Excellency went to see a glass house, newly erected in the hills adjoining to this place, at the distance of about three hours. Our way thither lay thro a delicious vale, which conveys a small river, is graced with green meadows on each side, and above these with rising hills, adorned with a variety of trees, but particularly pines and firs. I here observed the several curiosities of that art and manufacture, which, tho frequent in England, I had never before seen. Returning home we stept a little to the left hand, to visit a convent of _Cistercian_ monks, by the name of _St. Cross_, founded in the year 1131, by _St. Leopold_, Marquess of _Austria_. During the late siege of _Vienna_ it was burnt by the Tartars (the common fate of all this country for thirty or forty Holland miles round _Vienna_) but soon after rebuilt by its own abbot, _Clement Scheffer_, in a more stately and splendid manner. Here reside an abbot, a prior, and about sixty monks, all royally maintained by noble revenues belonging to the monastery. They are neatly and gentilely dressed, lodged in pleasant chambers, have their public appartments alike magnificent, a fine garden, and prospects beautified with vistos and avenues cut in the adjoining woods. The abbot was then absent, but the prior and librarian treated us at supper, where we were served with seven or eight dishes, the best old wines, and conversation far from monkish. The librarian particularly was pleased to ridicule the custom of signing all the doors of this country with C. M. B. which the people fondly esteem a charm against fire and thievery; but he, as he said, instead of _Cuspar Malcheir Bulkasar_, was wont to interpret these letters _Cax Mundus Beelzebub_. At the same time I could not but be highly offended at a certain jocular freedom, with which he treated the _Holy Scripture_, saying with a profane mirth, when he delivered to us a glass of wine, _Transeat a me calix iste_; and when he had tossed off his own, _Consummatum est_. In truth we here saw not any token of popish zeal or superstition, as is usual in other places, no crucifixes, or images of the _Trinity_, _Virgin_, and the like; but instead of these, the whole Imperial family excellently well painted, and these in rooms, which for grandeur exceeded any, that the Emperor is master of in his palaces about _Vienna_. Here they favoured us with a lodging after a gentile and candid entertainment, and dismissed us in the like manner by eight a clock the next morning. Their library was mean, but the case very neat; tho the library had been much larger before the destruction by the Tartars. However I saw here a good Latin _Ms._ of the _New Testament_, without the _Epistles_ of _St. Peter_, _James_, or _John_; and the _Apocalypse_ placed immediately after _St. John’s Gospel_. October iv.