"Prince Eugene's palace in the suburbs is an expensive stately building, but of a very barbarous Gothic taste. He was _more skilled in battering walls than building_, as was said of his friend, the Duke of Marlborough. There is a room in it, where all Prince Eugene's battles were painted: upon which the Portuguese ambassador told him, that the whole house was indeed richly furnished, but that all the kings in Europe could not furnish such a room as that. I have been pretty busy since I came here, and have regretted it the less that there is no very great amusement in this place. No Italian opera; no French comedy; no dancing. I have, however, heard Monticelli, who is the next wonder of the world to Farinelli." "_Knittelfeldt in Styria, 28th April._ "This is about a hundred and twenty miles from Vienna. The first forty is a fine well-cultivated plain, after which we enter the mountains; and, as we are told, we have three hundred miles more of them before we reach the plains of Lombardy. The way of travelling through a mountainous country is generally very agreeable. We are obliged to trace the course of the rivers, and are always in a pretty valley surrounded by high hills; and have a constant and very quick succession of wild agreeable prospects every quarter of a mile. Through Styria nothing can be more curious than the scenes. In the valleys, which are fertile and finely cultivated, there is at present a full bloom of spring. The hills to a certain height are covered with firs and larch trees, the tops are all shining with snow. You may see a tree white with blossom, and, fifty fathom farther up, the ground white with snow. These hills, as you may imagine, give a great command of water to the valleys, which the industrious inhabitants distribute into every field, and render the whole very fertile. There are many iron mines in the country, and the valleys are upon that account extremely populous. But as much as the country is agreeable in its wildness, as much are the inhabitants savage, and deformed, and monstrous in their appearance. Very many of them have ugly swelled throats; idiots and deaf people swarm in every village; and the general aspect of the people is the most shocking I ever saw. One would think, that as this was the great road, through which all the barbarous nations made their irruptions into the Roman empire, they always left here the refuse of their armies before they entered into the enemy's country, and that from thence the present inhabitants are descended. Their dress is scarce European, as their figure is scarce human.