LETTER XXXIV.

Stockholm, January, 1808.

OWING to the late heavy falls of snow I was detained a little until the roads could be sufficiently cleared to allow me to pass. This useful operation is performed by the peasantry in a manner so ingenious as to deserve noting. A large and open triangle formed of very strong and heavy planks, is placed upon the snow on the high road. To this machine horses are attached, which drag it forward; the acute angle plowing up the snow as they advance, and throwing the wintry impediment to the right and left, the road is cleared, and travellers can proceed with ease and rapidity.

The management of this convenience is excellently regulated; it being impossible for the peasantry ever to neglect their duty any part of the year; for, throughout the whole term, the good state of the roads is particularly guarded. Every parish or district, by a strict ordinance, and under a severe penalty, is obliged to send a certain number of people every day into the roads, to keep them open in winter, and repair them in summer. Whatever may be the forfeiture annexed to disobedience of these orders, I do not hear that it has ever been levied: all seem so interested in preserving this branch of the police, both the heads of the districts who command, and the peasants who obey, that I am told, complaints are never heard, and that the roads themselves are not to be equalled even in England.

Towards the evening of the following day I arrived at Osby, being four Swedish miles (about twenty-four English), from the capital. I would have proceeded that night, but the intense cold, and the civility of the people at the inn, were inducements for halting I could not resist; and ordering a comfortable bed to be got ready, I prepared to await the morning there, when I would start for Stockholm at an early hour.

I found the rooms of my honest host and hostess not so warm as their wishes. I was put into a miserably bleak apart

ment, where, though a fire did greet my eyes, I was sure none had entered the stove for many days before; and after shivering by it for full three hours I was not a bit the better, but sat quaking and teeth-chattering like a man in an ague fit. I looked at Reaumur's thermometer, and found that twenty-five degrees of cold were without, and that five were within; (I mean in the room I inhabited). You will not be surprised that I should now acknowledge, from personal conviction, the truth of the governor Inkutskoi's declaration, "that in the winter season, even in his own house, and surrounded by his stoves, he was obliged to sit with all his furs on; being never able to get less than ten degress of frost in his chamber."

When the hour of rest came, I found my situation not so bad; and not daring to take my usual repose in my kibitka, got into a snug bed most comfortably wrapped up. Thus was I disposed of: but in spite of the severe weather, and unknown to me, (for they who would take all affection is ready to sacrifice, are more selfish than worthy), my trusty domestic took possession of his sledge, still to be on the watch. The consequence was, that thirty degrees took place at midnight; and when the morning broke my poor fellow was found in such a state, that a very few minutes more would have rendered his recovery impossible. After he did revive, I was not a little fearful of what might yet be the effects of so thorough a freezing, and therefore stirred not till the middle of the day, when all indisposition seemed to vanish, and he resumed his duties with his usual cheerfulness and activity.

We bade farewel to our civil landlord; and beginning our march, in about five hours reached the metropolis of Sweden. The ground, on the approach to Stockholm, is pretty enough, being rather hilly and well wooded. I also observed several handsomely built country residences peeping from amidst the trees, in the manner of our own little villas in the vicinity of London.

The town is not discoverable as you approach it on the Osby side; and when I came so near as to enter the gate, I was stopped by the customhouse officers, who examined my baggage in the most insolent manner; and after receiving double

the douceur I usually gave on these occasions, behaved with increased impertinence and imposition. They are not absolutely officers of the crown; and that their shameless extortion sufficiently declared. This part of the royal revenue is farmed out; having been invested in the hands of several of the merchants in Stockholm, as a security for a loan his majesty wanted a few years ago. The term, I believe, expires in three years; at which period it will return to the king, and most probably be put on a footing more honourable and beneficial to the state. At present, this controlling situation of the customfarmers is severely complained against by the rest of the merchants, who find themselves traversed in a thousand ways by these tyrants in office, to the injury of some, the ruin of others, and the grievance of all.

The contrast between this city and St. Petersburgh struck me forcibly; and certainly, much to the advantage of the latter. The streets of Stockholm are inconveniently as well as inelegantly narrow. The exterior of the houses is dirty, the architecture shabby, and all strikes as very low and confined. Yet I must except the palace; and that is commanding, in a grand and simple taste. It is square, on an elevated ground, has a spacious court in the centre, and is in every way worthy a royal residence. Near the entrance are two large bronze lions; who was the artist I cannot learn, but they are admirably executed. As we view the palace from the water, it reminds us of Somerset-House, though it far exceeds the British structure in size, magnificence, and sound architecture.

Stockholm cannot boast any considerable place or square, nor indeed any street wider than an English lane. However, as every thing in this world suffers or gains by comparison, perhaps when I have passed a few weeks here, and the vividness of Russian topography is a little faded, I may fancy the streets wider, and the open places more capacious. Coming from the finest city in Europe, perhaps, may affect the senses like one suddenly brought from excessive light into the shade: my eye is not yet capable of embracing at a moment, what use will afterwards make me see and estimate.

The situation of this capital deserves finer edifices. Like St.

Petersburgh, it is built on islands; seven, of different extent, form its basis. They lie between the Baltic and the Malar lake. The harbour is sufficiently deep, even up to the quay, to receive the largest vessels. The city is supposed to have been founded in the year 1252 by Birger Jarl, regent of the kingdom; but the court was not removed hither from Upsal before the last century. At the extremity of the harbour the streets rise one above the other in the form of an amphitheatre, with the magnificent palace, like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear, in the centre. Except in the suburbs, where a few houses are of wood, the buildings are generally of stone, or of brick stuccoed, which at a little distance has a similar effect! The several islands on which the city is erected, are united by twelve bridges. The royal academy of sciences (of which I shall speak further hereafter), owes its institution to Linnæus, and was incorporated in the year 1748. There is also a royal academy of arts, which, when I have visited, I will more particularly note; and likewise the arsenal, said to be a most interesting place. There is a national bank in Stockholm, and several manufactories which rather flag on account of the war.

By the above sketch, you will not be surprised to hear that the inns are intolerable; but to compensate for that inconvenience, the lodgings are good, and two establishments (most respectably superseding the use of taverns), are substituted for the restaurateur part of the animal economy. They are founded by gentlemen on a liberal footing, are called La Societé, and the Burgher's Club. The first is for noblesse, officers of the garri son, and strangers: the other for merchants and strangers also. The former is at the court end of the town, and consists of three hundred members, most of them nobility, officers of rank, and foreign ministers and their suites. Well may it bear the title of La Societé, for it is, without exception, the most rational and elegant assembly with which I ever associated. Perfect freedom is allowed; but such is the decorum with which every, person conducts himself, that the nauseous bacchanalian practices, which too often disgust in our British social meetings, never obtrude themselves here. They have an excellent billiardtable, and a library of well chosen books, with most of the

newspapers of the country; those of other nations of the continent are of course, under the present circumstances, interdicted: and so far well; but they exclude the papers of England also. This is very strange; and the more strange, united as the two countries are in policy, that it should be an act, not of individuals alone, but of the government. Whatever newspapers may be inclosed from British merchants to their correspondents here, are never received. In a country like Sweden, where liberty is so tenaciously boasted, and where an Englishman would naturally expect to find the gazettes of his country, as an ally and a free state, such precaution is rather extraordinary. The reason of it I cannot guess, as I never saw a nation less infected by envious jealousy, but rather, in all things, honest, brave, and honourable.

In the institution of La Societé an excellent dinner is given, but not at so excellent an hour, viz. at two o'clock! However, the price is moderate, and the attendance good. No stranger can be admitted that is not introduced by a member, or by the minister from his own court. By these means, all improper persons are excluded. This club, as well as that of the bourgeoises, is on a far more liberal plan than the English clubs of St. Petersburgh and Mosco. However, orders of men have a certain resemblance in all countries; and if I preferred a good dinner as my primum mobile, I should certainly pay the most frequent visits to the merchant's society. If nobility spread the board excellently, trade doth it superexcellently; and Lucullus himself need not turn for better fare from most city tables. Indeed, during all my travels abroad (and they have pretty well measured the continent), I have ever found, both publicly and privately, that the gentlemen of the golden fleece best understood the use of the carcase.

Having nothing particular to engage my time on the first evening of my arrival, I went to the theatre. Like all others on the continent, it was dismally dark, and as dismally stupid. Neither actor nor actress played well enough to bring a message to some of our sorriest kings and queens of the buskin; and had you been joint spectator with me at this tragedy, I believe I should have had a most hearty laugh at what now sent me