George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

[2] places they were making hay, in others there were preserves of wild birds; and, though it is nowhere more beautiful and nowhere so well kept as the Grosse Garten, near Dresden, it is, by its extent, much grander and finer. . . . .

June 23.—In the evening we drove out to Mr. Von Hammer's, at Dobling,¹ where he has a country-house about four or five English miles from Vienna. I had a letter to him, and he came to see me the other day; a very lively, prompt, frank gentleman, of sixty-two years, talking English very well, French and Italian, but famous, as everybody knows, for his knowledge of Oriental languages, and for his great works on Eastern literature and Turkish history.

Every Thursday evening . . . . he receives at his house, unceremoniously, the principal men of letters of the city, whose acknowledged head he is, and most of the strangers of note who visit it. He asked us to come early, in order to enjoy a fine view of the city by sunset from behind his house and garden. . . . . On our return from the walk we found a considerable party, perhaps thirty persons. Mrs. Von Hammer and her daughter presided at the tea-tables in the court, al fresco . . . . Everything was very simply done. The garden is not pretty, and the house is not very spacious, but three parlors and the court-yard were lighted; tea, fruit, ices, and refreshments were handed round, . . . . and there was much pleasant talk in English, French, Italian, and German. The persons to whom I talked with most pleasure were Kaltenbaeck, the editor of the ‘Austrian Periodical for History and Statistics’; Wolf, one of the librarians of the Imperial Library;² and Count Auersperg, a gentleman of an old Austrian family, who has distinguished himself as a poet, and got into trouble lately as a liberal poet. It was such a sort of conversazione in the open air as belongs rather to Italy than to Germany; it was all over before ten o'clock. . . . .

June 24.—After a visit to Baron Lerchenfeld, this morning, I passed two or three hours in the Imperial Library, with Wolf, in looking over . . . . the old Spanish books. He is a great amateur in this department, and I found much to interest and occupy me, though almost nothing of value that was quite new. The most curious parts were out of the collection of an old archbishop of the Valencia family, of the house of Cordova.

When I had finished this, . . . . I went to see Prince Metternich.