uriosity had been excited, to pass without investigation. The result
was a tolerably accurate acquaintance with every remarkable object in
the place, not excepting Count Nositz's small but excellent
gallery,--one of the most creditable collections of modern growth which
I have seen. Neither did we fail to form acquaintance with the people,
as well of the humbler as of the more exalted stations; of which the
result, in every instance, was, that the favourable impression which
had been made upon me, while wandering among the mountains, suffered no
diminution. I found them to be,--in the city, not less than among the
villages,--a kind-hearted, industrious, and most patient race. I saw,
indeed, that they were not without their grounds of discontent, and
that they felt their grievances keenly. The higher orders complained
because the ancient capital of their native land had sunk into a mere
provincial town. They pointed to palaces deserted and falling to decay,
and said, with natural bitterness, that it ill became Bohemians of the
best blood to prefer the pleasures of Vienna to the duty which they
owed to their father-land. They spoke, too, indignantly of the
centralizing system, of the ban that had gone forth against their
beloved language, of the extinction of their privileges, and the
efforts that are making, to blot out the very remembrance of their
nationality. "But it will not succeed," was the usual termination of
such harangues. "We have no idea of shaking off the yoke. We know that
in the present state of Europe, Bohemia could not exist one year as an
independent monarchy; but we shall never be content till the laws are
everywhere administered in a language which is intelligible to the
people, and we and they be permitted to exercise some control over our
own affairs." In like manner, the humbler classes,--the shop-keeper,
the mechanic, and the artisan,--spoke not unintelligibly of their
altered condition, since the native nobility were their best customers,
and taxation scarcely reached them. "But we are no longer a people now.
The stranger rules us, the shackles are on our wrists;--what can we
do?" Then would follow a shrug of the shoulders, a wink of the eye, and
a hasty return to the sort of manner which a careless observer might
easily mistake for the external proof of content, but which is, in
fact, a disguise put on to hide feelings directly the reverse.

CHAPTER XII.

QUIT PRAGUE. JOURNEY TO BRUeNN BY