him to their houses and introducing him to their families.  After an introduction, you may go at any hour of the evening you please:  but morning visits are not much in fashion, since the toilette is seldom made till after dinner, which is always early in Germany.  There is no getting dinner after three o’clock in any part of Dresden.  Besides the Ressource there are several other Clubs here, such as the Harmonic and others.  The public balls are given at the Hotel de Pologne twice a week, viz., one for the Noblesse and one for the Bourgeoisie.  None of the female Bourgeoisie are admitted to the balls and societies of the Noblesse, and only such of the males as occupy posts or employments at Court or under Government such as Koenigs-rath, Hof-rath, or officers of the Army.  It is therefore usual, when the Sovereign wishes to introduce a person of merit among the Bourgeoisie into the upper circles, that he gives him the title of Rath or Counsellor; but this priviledge of being presentable at Court does not extend to their wives and daughters.  All the Military officers, from whatever class of life they spring, have introduction de jure into the balls and societies of the Noblesse, and are always in uniform.  But when they attend the balls of the Bourgeoisie, it is the etiquette for them to wear plain clothes:  at the balls of the Bourgeoisie, therefore, not an uniform is to be seen.  I observed by far the prettiest women at the balls of the Bourgeoisie, and very many are to be found there who in education and accomplishments fully equal those of the Noblesse, and this is no small merit, for the women in Saxony of the higher classes are extremely well educated; most of them are proficient in music and are versed in French and Italian litterature.  They seem amiable and goodnatured and by no means minaudieres, as Lady Mary Wortley Montague has rather unjustly termed them; for they appear to me to be the most frank, artless creatures I ever beheld, and to have no sort of minauderie or coquetterie about them.  Beauty is the appanage of the Saxon women, hence the proverb in rhyme: 

  Darauf bin ich gegangen nach Sachsen,
  Wo die schoenen Maedchen auf den Bauemen wachsen.

In English: 

  Behold me landed now on Saxon ground,
  Where lovely damsels on the trees are found.

A taste for litterature is indeed general throughout the whole nation; and this city is considered as the Athens of Germany.

DRESDEN, Nov. 8th.