CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE OF AUSTRIA IN GENERAL.

The south of Germany would be the most fortunate country in Europe, if the government to which it is subject had not shown in many circumstances a weakness that but ill accords with the wisdom of its views. Temperate in its climate, fertile from the nature of its soil, and happy in its institutions, it remains invariably in a monotonous state of well-being, which is prejudicial to the activity of the mind alone, not to the happiness of the citizens. The inhabitants of this peaceful and fertile country have but one wish, that is, to live to-morrow as they lived yesterday. This tranquillity which in Austria pervades all classes of society is surely preferable to that agitation and thirst of wealth which torment almost all ranks in other countries. Thus industry, ease and domestic enjoyments are more highly valued in Austria than elsewhere: there every thing is done rather out of duty than for fame; and no man looks for the reward of his actions in the empty popularity which merely flatters pride and vanity, without ever gratifying the heart.

A nation which has no other motive than a love of its duties must be essentially a generous and an upright nation. What nation displays, on the whole, more integrity and generosity than the Austrians? They carry the love of their sovereigns to the highest pitch, and that because they regard this love as the most sacred of duties. Let their rulers be ever so unfortunate, their attachment is but the stronger, and the greatest sacrifices seem to cost them nothing.

The Germans in general, and the Austrians in particular, possess a sincerity and a probity that are proof against every thing. These valuable qualities originate as much in the excellence of their institutions as of their hearts. Their tranquil and peaceful disposition as well as their domestic habits, encourage in them a love of order and union from which they never deviate.

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.

The Austrian nation is perhaps the most upright and the most moral of any in Europe. There is not an Austrian, with the exception of the higher class of society, but feels that morality is the genuine source of domestic happiness and the guarantee of the peace of families. The sacred ties of marriage are still respected; and how indeed could it well be otherwise in a country where woman is devoted to her conjugal duties and finds the reward of this devotedness in the scrupulous fidelity of him who is its object! Conjugal love always leads to maternal affection; and the Austrian women are all, or nearly all, excellent mothers. They are not more ostentatious in their attachment to their children than in their love for their husbands: so that the name of her who sacrifices herself for the object of a pure and tender affection remains for ever unknown to the world. Divorce, which introduces a kind of anarchy into families, has never been sanctioned by the laws of Austria, and this is not one of the least important benefits that it owes to its legislation.

The fair sex in Austria have in general auburn hair, delicate complexions and large blue eyes, the united effect of which there would be no withstanding, did not their modesty and simplicity command respect, and temper by the charm of virtue the too powerful impression of their beauty. They delight by their sensibility, as they interest by their imagination. Without being too much addicted to the cultivation of literature and the fine arts, they are no strangers to the best productions of either; and when you have once gained their confidence you are astonished at their knowledge, which they never display but in spite of themselves. The Austrian ladies speak with equal fluency all the languages of Europe; and in company they possess in general a marked superiority over the men.

These observations apply particularly to the women of the higher classes: as to those of inferior rank, they can scarcely be surpassed for goodness of disposition and purity of morals. The maternal love of these rustics is too strong not to preserve them from those faults which are unhappily too common among females of the same condition in many other countries. Labour and the exercises of religion occupy them entirely, and exempt them from those vices which are generated by idleness. They are, however, charged, at least those of some districts, with being too much addicted to spirituous liquors, and with impairing by this indulgence their circumstances and their health.

The men are in general tall, well proportioned, and of a ruddy complexion: but though few ordinary persons are to be found among them, it is rarely that you meet with forms distinguished by that higher sort of manly beauty which is frequently seen in the south of Europe, and which furnished models for the finest statues of antiquity. The Germans still answer the description given by Tacitus of their ancestors: they are almost all fair and light complexioned: and their souls do not possess the energy which their stature and strength would seem to denote.