844 
STATE AGEICULTUEAL SOCIETY 
hills, with a citadel on the summit, that it might be more easily defended, 
Yisited the imperial naval school, the natural history collections, the library, 
rich in Petrarchian works and original manuscripts, the botanical garden, and 
the ill-fated Maximillian’s beautiful villa of Mira Mare, standing on the north 
side of the harbor, on the very water’s edge, some six miles from the heart 
of the city. 
FromTriest, I went by the the magnificent mountain railway, over the Car- 
dine Alps to Gratz, where are a fine old unversity and polytechnic school, 
and thence to the grand and brilliant capital of the Austrian Empire. For 
the beauty of its plan, the elegance of its private dwellings, merchant shops, 
public buildings and royal palaces, the magnificence of its public parks and 
gardens, the richness of its collections in art and in natural history, the num¬ 
ber and importance of its institutions of learning, including one of the most 
numerously attended universities in Germany, an extensive and excellent 
polytechnic school, an academy of engineers, the Theresianer Academy (for 
the benefit of the sons of the nobility), a conservatory of music, a school for 
orientalists, an excellent veterinary school, and many others, and especially 
for its immense hospitals, all open to the student of medicine and surgery; 
for all these, Vienna has no rival but Paris. It is needless to say that the 
several days of my sojourn were delightfully and profitably spent. It was 
there that for the first time I met our distinguished countryman, John 
Lothrop Motley, the world-admired historian, who was then our representa¬ 
tive at the Austrian Court. The Emperor Joseph I did not see, for he was 
then at Pesth being crowned King of Hungary. 
My next point was the grand old city of Prague, capital of Bohemia, some 
152 miles northwest of Vienna. On the way, at one or two points, earth¬ 
works and hasty fortifications thrown up by the Austrians to impede the vic¬ 
torious armies of King William in his determined march upon their capital, 
were pointed out as interesting reminders of the decisive war that raged in 
all that country but the season before. 
Prague is surrounded by a wall twelve miles in circumference and is over¬ 
looked by rocky steeps on every side. Its university, the oldest in Ger¬ 
many, having been founded more than 500 years, was among the most numer¬ 
ously attended during the middle ages ; the number of students being, at 
times, no less than 20,000. 
Austria has been one of the haughtiest and most despotic of the five great 
powers and there is reason to believe that the humiliation she has just receiv¬ 
ed at the hands of Prussia and Italy combined may do her good. Industry 
and education, already more advanced than I had supposed, have both been 
quickened and energized by the remarkable success of her victorious rival. 
Having lost the provinces of Lombardy and Venetia through her avarice 
and despotism, and long been threatened with the loss of Hungary as well, 
she is learning a lesson of moderation that may save to her a continued place 
among the leading governments of Europe. 
The year 1867 has been scarcely less eventful in the history of the empire 
