564 TRAVELS 
enough to hold all our party. Befides, it is an eflablifhed cuftom, 
and generally followed by every traveller throughout the Swedifh 
dominions, the great road excepted, to go direblly to the clergy¬ 
man’s houfe, and to afk for a chamber to lodge in, with the fame 
freedom as you would ufe at an inn; for the public houfes kept 
by the peafants arc fo very bad, that it is impoffible for decent 
company to flay in them. The clergy, who, for the moll part, are 
wealthy, and wearied with the dull uniformity of living in thofe 
fequeflered regions, cut off from all fociety, are extremely happy 
to receive a flranger who is acquainted with what is paffing in 
the w 7 orld, and with whom they may converfe of public and of 
private tranfactions. He is entertained in a fuperior flyle, and 
treated with the mod; delicious fare they can procure. 
The clergy almofl univerfally fpeak Latin, fome few German, 
and as they have had a college education, you find one now and 
then who fpeaks a little French : with the help of thefe languages 
you make yourfelf underflood by the mailer of the family, but one 
fufFers a vafl difadvantage in not being able to fpeak, in fome de¬ 
gree, the language of the country. In the houfes of the clergy you 
fometimes meet w 7 ith extremely handfome and amiable young 
ladies, who having for the greatefl part been educated in a town, 
or amidfl the pleafures and diffipation of the capital, return home 
with a certain polifh in their manners, which is by no means cal¬ 
culated to render folitude pleafing, or to difpofe their minds to fup- 
port the contrail, and fudden change of fituations, with philofophi- 
cal equanimity. Thefe young women, however, like their mothers, 
fpeak 
