GERMANY.

This name was given by the Romans to a country inhabited by various small tribes, under different names, and probably of different origins, but who were so nearly similar in manners, language, and religion, as to lead those further advanced in civilization to confound them all under one common denomination. Under that denomination was comprehended not only the country now called Germany, but Denmark, Norway, Swe<len, Finland, Livonia, and Prussia. The name is said to be derived from two words, Ghar man or Wehr-man, meaning war-man or warrior, which is also the signification of two other words, Ale man, of the same import. They were by themselves called Teutones, from one of their national divinities, Teut, or, as is sometimes said, Thuiskon, who seems to have been the general object of veneration, and from whom the name is derived which is now assumed by all the people who call their country Teutchland or Deutchland.

The Rhine on the west, and the Vistula on the east, were considered, at the most remote periods, as the boundaries of Germany; whilst on the north it extended along the ocean and the Baltic Sea, and on the south was terminated by the river Danube. But such boundaries were by no means definite; for many German tribes inhabited the southern banks of the Rhine as far as the Scheldt. Between the Rhine and the Mosellewere the Ubii; and higher up, but beyond the latter river, were the Treviri, and then the Triboci, the Neimetes, and the Vangiones. The Mediomatrici were planted along the Moselle, near the site of the present city of Metz; and above them, on the Rhine, in the present Swiss canton of Basil, were the Raurici or Rauraci. The ancient nations of Vindelicia were settled between the sources of the Rhine and of the Danube. Noricum was inhabited by several tribes between the rivers Drave and Danube, and comprehended the provinces now known by the names of Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Tyrol, and Bavaria. Beyond the Danube, to the westward of the Marcomanni, the country was occupied by the Hermunduri, and extended to the north along the Hercynian Mountains to the river Sala. A nation beyond the Hercynian Mountains, known then as the Boiohemum, and in modern times as Bohemia, were in contact with the Quadii, whose territory, now called Moravia, touched, on its southern part, the Danube. These two tribes, with the Marcomanni, and some smaller clans, were comprehended under the general name of Suevi, a people who at a subsequent period forced their way into Spain, and established themselves in that peniiisUla as a warlike and independent nation. The Suevi were a powerful nation, who extended themselves along the Hercynian Forest, through which they penetrated, and occupied a tract of land extending from the Vistula to the Elbe. Among their possessions were the divisions which subsequently obtained the names of Saxony, Brandenburg, Lusatia, and Silesia. One subdivision of them, called the Semnones, grew sufficiently powerful to seize some of the richest provinces of Gaul; whilst another, the Aestii, possessed the borders of the Baltic Sea, whence they drew much amber, of which they made use in traffic with the surrounding tribes. These last, according to Tacitus, were worshippers of the mother of the gods, and relied on her for protection. They are said to have been more industrious than the rest of the Germans in the cultivation of their lands, and at a very early period produced corn. Their amber was reported to have been obtained by diving in the rivers and the sea. This substance was then highly estimated; and at a subsequent period, in the reign of Nero, a Roman knight is stated to have purchased for that emperor, of the Aestii, at one time thirteen thousand pounds weight, amongst which was a single piece weighing thirteen pounds. At a still later period, a letter is found in Cassiodorus, in which Theodoric, king of the Goths, gives thanks to the Aestii for a present of amber, and in return assures them of his friendship and protection.

In the interior of Germany, the Cimbri and the Saxons were possessed of the country north of the Elbe; whilst on the south side of that stream the Chauci were the masters of the district through which the Weser flows, and were in contact with the two smaller tribes of the Cherusci and Chamavi. The Frisii were distinguished as the Upper and the Lower, and were separated from the Chauci by the river Ems, anti from each other by a branch of the Rhine; whilst beyond the Yssel were some migratory tribes, the Bruckteri and the Marsi. The Uspetes were established on the river Luppia, now the Lippe; and beyond that stream were the Usipetes, who were celebrated for changing their residence, and were thence to be found in other districts. The Teucteri were settled on the Rhine, in the country of the Menopii; and next to them the Jubones, near the modern Juliers. The Catti or Cotti inhabited parts of Hesse and Thuringia, extending from the Hartz Mountains to the Rhine and the Weser. Their southern neighbours were the Sedusi, bordering on Suabia, where they came in contact with the Marcomanni, who have been already mentioned.

Such are the best accounts which can be collected from Caesar, Tacitus, and Ptolemy, respecting the localities of the various tribes who inhabited Germany before the period of the intercourse between them and the Romans. It has been justly remarked, that whilst modem nations are fixed and permanent societies, connected amongst themselves by laws and government, and bound to their native soil by arts and agriculture, the German tribes were only voluntary and fluctuating associations of soldiers, almost of savages; and the same territory often changed its inhabitants in the course of conquest or of emigration. A victorious state often communicated its own name to a vanquished people. Sometimes crowds of volunteers flocked from all parts to the standard of a victorious leader; his camp became their country, and some event soon gave a new but general name to the mixed community. Thus the distinctions of ferocious invaders were perpetually varied by themselves, and naturally confounded the astonished subjects of the Roman empire.

It is probable that the accounts of the numbers of the German people, as transmitted by early writers, are grossly exaggerated. In great and civilized states, millions of subjects pursue their peaceful avocations in silence and obscurity; but in a state of rude republicanism, or of civil commotions, almost every member of the community is called into active exertion; and thus, with their irregular divisions, their restless motions, their profusion of kings and warriors, and numerous contests, they present to our minds an appearance of numbers very far beyond the reality, which is still further strengthened by the most splendid appellations being frequently and repeatedly applied to inconsiderable objects. When the Romans first became acquainted with Germany, about the year 640 from the building of their capital, or more than 100 years before the commencement of the Christian era, the natives had advanced but a few steps from the savage state. Even in the subsequent age, as Tacitus affirms, they were so ignorant of the use of letters as to be unable to transmit from one generation to another any annals of their country, or any knowledge of the agreeable or useful arts of life. In an extent very far [7:10:474]surpassing modem Germany, Ptolemy speaks of ninety toŵns or cities; whilst Tacitus asserts, as a well-known fact, that in his time they had no cities, and that they affected to despise the buildings constructed by Roman industry, as places of confinement rather than of security. Their dwellings were not even contiguous, nor formed into villages, but each of these barbarians fixed his independent dwelling on any spot which a plain, a wood, or a stream of good water, invited him to settle on; and in constructing his hut, neither stone, brick, nor tiles were employed. Built of timber, they were very low, and covered with straw, having a hole to allow of the emission of the smoke.

The clothing was of the simplest kind, notwithstanding the inclemency of the climate in a territory covered with woods, and not ameliorated by cultivation. In the more northern parts scanty garments of furs were used; and in the south some coarse linen, spun and woven by the females. Their food consisted chiefly of wild animals, or of the flesh of their large herds of cows and of horses, which were nearly in the state of their original wildness. A small quantity of corn was the only produce of the soil; the use of gardens, orchards, and artificial meadows, was unknown; nor could any great improvement in agriculture have existed, where a new division of the land took place annually, and a great part lay waste and without any tillage. The Germans seem to have learned the process of brewing or of distillation, as they made intoxicating liquors from wheat and barley, in the use or abuse of which they indulged to the greatest excess in social meetings and public assemblies. Drinking and gambling were their highest gratifications. They gloried in passing whole days and nights at the table; and the blood of guests, often of friends and relations, stained their drunken assemblies. The desperate gamester often staked his person and his liberty on the cast of a dice, and then patiently submitted to the decision, and was sold into slavery by his more fortunate competitor.

Notwithstanding the grossness of manners amongst the German tribes, the females were held in high estimation; and whilst the men were brave, the women were chaste. Polygamy was not in use excepting amongst the princes; and amongst them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances. Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws. Adulteries were punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was seduction justified by example and fashion. The unpolished wives of the Germans partook of few of those gratifications which tend to inflame the passions, and their fidelity was in some measure secured by the exposure to which they were subject in the open huts, and by poverty, solitude, and the painful cares of domestic occupation. Besides these restraints, the Germans treated their women with esteem and confidence, consulted them on every occasion of importance, and fondly believed that in their breasts resided a sanctity and wisdom more than human. Some of these interpreters of fate, such as Velleda in the Batavian war, governed, in the name of the deity, the fiercest nations of Germany. The rest of the sex were respected as the free and equal companions of soldiers, associated even by the ceremony of marriage to a life of toil, of danger, and of glory. In their great invasions, the camp of the barbarians was filled with a multitude of women, who remained firm and undaunted amidst the sound of arms, the various forms of destruction, and the honourable wounds of their sons and husbands. Fainting armies of Germans have more than once been driven back upon the enemy by the generous despair of the women, who dreaded death much less than servitude. If the day was irrecoverably lost, they well knew how to deliver themselves and their children, with their own hands, from an insulting victor. Heroines of such a description may claim admiration, but they can scarcely inspire the passion of love. They who attempt to imitate the sterner virtues of man must lose the attractive softness of their own sex, which is their principal charm. Conscious pride taught the German matrons to suppress every tender emotion which stood in competition with honour; and the first honour of the sex has ever been that of chastity.

The Germans were a warlike people, notwithstanding which their government was a species of democracy, although a few of the tribes on the shores of the Baltic acknowledged the authority of kings; but such kings owed their power as frequently to their valour or their eloquence as to their descent; and with all of them the power was tempered by the prevalence of popular assemblies. The assembly of the warriors of the tribe was convened at stated seasons, or on sudden emergencies. When a youth had attained the age of manhood, he was introduced into the general council of his countrymen, solemnly invested with a shield and a spear, and adopted as an equal and worthy member of the commonwealth. In such assemblies, the trial of public offences, the election of magistrates, and the great affairs of peace or war, were determined by independent votes. Sometimes these important questions were previously considered and prepared in a committee or select council of the principal chieftains. The magistrates might deliberate and persuade, but the people only could resolve and execute; and hence the resolutions were for the most part hasty and violent. They too often turned away with indignant contempt from the remonstrances of justice and policy, and signified by a hollow murmur their dislike of such timid councils. But when a popular orator proposed to vindicate the meanest citizen from either foreign or domestic injury, or called upon his countrymen to follow some enterprise of danger and of glory, the applause of the assembly was displayed by a loud clashing of shields and spears; for the Germans always assembled in arms, and it was to be dreaded lest an irregular multitude, inflamed by faction and strong liquors, should use their arms to enforce as well as to declare their furious resolutions.

A general of the tribe was elected on occasions of danger; and if the danger was pressing and extensive, several tribes concurred in the choice of the same general. The bravest warrior was named to lead his countrymen into the field by his example rather than by his commands; but this power, however limited, was still invidious. It expired with the war, and in time of peace the German tribes acknowledged not any supreme chief. Princes were, however, appointed in the general assembly, to administer justice, or rather to compose differences, in their respective districts. In the choice of these magistrates, as much regard was shown to birth as to merit To each was assigned by the public a guard and a council of a hundred persons; and the first of Sie princes appears to have enjoyed a pre-eminence of rank and honour which sometimes tempted the Romans to compliment them with the regal title.

The comparative view of the powers of the magistrates, in two remarkable instances, is alone sufficient to represent the whole system of German manners. The disposal of the landed property within their district was absolutely vested in their hands, and they distributed it every year according to a new division. At the same time they were not authorized to punish with death, to imprison, or even to strike, a private citizen.

The Germans respected only those duties which they imposed on themselves. The most obscure soldier resisted with disdain the authority of the magistrates. “The noblest youths,” says Tacitus, “blushed not to be numbered amongst the faithful companions of some renowned chief, to whom they devoted their arms and service. A noble emulation prevailed among the companions to obtain the first place in the esteem of their chief, among the chiefs to acquire the greatest number of valiant companions. The glory of such heroes diffused itself beyond the narrow limits[7:10:475] of their own tribe. Presents and embassies solicited their friendship, and the fame of their arms often ensured victory to the party they espoused. In the hour of danger it was shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valour by his companions, and shameful for the companions not to equal the valour of their chief. To survive his fall in battle was indelible infamy. The chiefs combated for victory, the companions for the chief. The noblest warriors, whenever their native country was sunk in the laziness of peace, maintained their numerous bands in some distant scene of action, to exercise their restless spirit, and to acquire renown by voluntary dangers. Gifts worthy of soldiers, the warlike steed, the bloody and ever-victorious lance, were the rewards which the companions claimed from the liberality of their chief. The rude plenty of his hospitable board was the only pay which he could bestow, or they would accept. War, rapine, and the freewill offerings of his friends, supplied the materials of this munificence.” This institution, however it might accidentally weaken the several republics, invigorated the general character of the Germans, and even ripened amongst them all the virtues of which barbarians are susceptible; the faith, valour, and hospitality so conspicuous long afterwards in the ages of chivalry.

The religion of the Germans was as gross as that of other nations in the same low stage of civilization. They adored the sun and the moon, the fire and the earth, together with those imaginary deities who were supposed to preside over the most important occupations of human life. They were persuaded that, by some ridiculous arts of divination, they could discover the will of the superior beings, and that human sacrifices were the most precious and acceptable offering to their altars. They seem to have adopted no images as visible objects of worship, nor to have constructed any edifices for the celebration of religious rites. Their only temples were dark and ancient groves, consecrated by the reverence of successive generations. Their secret gloom, the imagined residence of an invisible power, by presenting no distinct object of fear or worship, impressed the mind with a still deeper sense of religious horror; and the priests, rude and illiterate as they were, had been taught by experience the use of every artifice which could preserve and fortify impressions so well suited to promote their own interest.

The German priests had assumed a jurisdiction even in temporal concerns which the magistrate could not venture to exercise; and the haughty warrior submitted to the lash of correction, when it was inflicted, not by any human power, but by the immediate order of the god of war. Thus the defects of civil policy were sometimes supplied by the interposition of ecclesiastical authority. The latter was constantly exerted to maintain silence and decency in the popular assemblies, and was sometimes extended to a more enlarged concern for the national welfare. A solemn procession was occasionally celebrated in what are now the countries of Mecklenburg and Pome-ran ’ a∙ The unknown symbol of the earth, covered with a thick veil, was placed on a carriage drawn by cows; and in this manner the goddess, whose common residence was in the island of Rügen, visited several adjacent tribes of her worshippers. During her progress the sound of war was hushed, quarrels were suspended, arms laid aside, and the restless Germans had an opportunity of tasting the blessings of peace and of harmony. The íruce of God, so often and so ineffectually proclaimed by the clergy of the eleventh century, was an obvious imitation or continuation of this ancient custom.

But the influence of religion was far more powerful to inflame dhan to moderate the fierce passions of the Germans. The consecrated standards, long preserved in the groves of superstmon, were placed in the front of the battle; and the hostile army was devoted with dire execrations to the gods of war and of thunder. With the Germans cowardice was the most unpardonable of sins. A brave man was the worthy favourite of the martial deities. He who had lost his shield was banished alike from the civil and the religious assemblies of his countrymen. Some of the northern tribes seem to have embraced the doctrine of transmigration; others imagined a gross paradise of immortal drunkenness. All agreed that a life spent in arms, and a glorious death in battle, were the best preparations for a happy futurity, either in this or another world.

That singular order of men, the bards, have attracted to them the attention of all who have attempted to investigate the antiquities of the Celts, the Scandinavians, and the Germans. It is not easy, however, to calculate the enthusiasm of arms and glory which they kindled in the breasts of their audience. It was in the hour of battle, or in the feast of victory, that the bards celebrated the glory of the heroes of ancient days, the ancestors of those warlike chieftains who listened with transport to their artless but animated strains. The view of arms and of danger heightened the effect of the military song; and the passions which it tended to excite, the desire of fame, and the contempt of death, were the habitual sentiments of a German mind.

Such is the description of the manners, characters, and propensities of the ancient Germans, as delineated by Tacitus, and by which, in spite of their climate, their want of learning and the arts, and the absence of fixed laws, they were formed into a people of military heroes, and enabled to carry on formidable hostilities, during more than two centuries, with the mighty power of the Romans.

The early history of the Germans, like that of all nations who had no written records, is involved in much obscurity. The first knowledge of their transactions was that of the invasion of the country by the Gauls, commanded by Segovesus, king of the Celtae; whilst his brother Bellovesus marched with another army into Italy; both of which divisions are said to have been directed by the flight of birds. Segovesus crossed the Rhine, and gained a settlement near the Hercynian Forest. The Germans, however, soon acted on the offensive, and expelled the Gauls, and, by the assistance of the Belgae, one of their most warlike tribes, gained possession of some territory to the west of the Rhine, where they were enabled to fix and maintain themselves so firmly as never to be driven out, and whence they extended themselves to the sea-coasts of Britain, and even drove its inhabitants into the interior. The Germans and the Gauls, thus brought into contact with each other, continued to hold vacillating intercourse, sometimes at war, at other times in alliance in opposition to the power of the conquering and disciplined Romans. The Germans, under the name of Cimbri, then invaded the territory of Rome, and spread such terror that Marius, by a deviation from the law, was appointed consul to command an army against them. After various marches during some years, in 102 before Christ, Marius, with an army of 52,000 men, attacked the barbariam on the banks of the Rhone, and, though they are said to have mustered 300,000 foot and 15,000 horse, completely defeated them, with a loss of 150,000 killed and 60,00t prisoners. Many, preferring death to slavery, underwent military execution; and a few were scattered over Gaul or crossed the Danube, and so escaped to their own coun try.

After Julius Caesar had completed the subjugationorGaul, and extended his conquest to the Rhine, he first became acquainted with the German name. Ariovistus the leader of a tribe that dwelt to the south of the Da nube, attempted to fix his establishment in Gaul, but wat [7:10:476]defeated by Caesar, and, with the loss of 80,000 men, was driven across the Rhine, though two tribes of his followers remained on the west side of that river; and the fugitives who returned augmented the numbers of the German tribe of the Marcomanni. Caesar built a bridge over the Rhine, and twice passed that river at the head of his army, not with the view of permanent conquest, but to secure his province of Gaul against the attacks of the barbarians; and he also took many of the Germans into his pay, first in the war with the Gauls, and afterwards in the civil contest with Pompey. The civil wars, which occupied first Caesar and Pompey, and afterwards Mark Antony and Brutus and Cassius, left the Germans opportunities to attempt incursions. The confederation of the Segambri passed the Rhine, and having repelled the attack of Agrippa, settled themselves on the western side of that river; but a few years afterwards they were defeated by Lollius the legate of Augustus, when, 14 years before Christ, Drusus, the son-in-law of the emperor, constructed several fortresses along that river, to prevent the incursions of the Germans. He proceeded with success, and penetrated as far as the Elbe. He died in the year 8 before Christ, and was succeeded by Tiberius, who during his command not only sustained the power which Drusus had acquired, but extended it towards the north; and, by intrigues among the natives, as much as by his force, induced many of the tribes to solicit peace, and excited others to enter into the military service of Rome. The body-guard of Augustus was composed of German volunteers, amongst whom was the distinguished noble whose name has descended to posterity, being sometimes called Hermanus, and at others Arminius, who received the privileges of a Roman citizen and the dignity of a Roman knight. He was the son of Sigmer, a prince of the Cherusci, and had been educated in Rome, and early appointed an officer in the army of Augustus, but is said never to have lost the relish for the customs of his ancestors, nor his zeal for the independence of his country; and during the course of his instruction in arts and in arms he warmly cherished the hope of adapting these instructions to the purpose of freeing his country from the Roman yoke. He felt a confidence that all the discipline of the Roman armies would be unable in a fair field to resist the raw bravery of his unpolished countrymen.

The best legions of Rome were intrusted to the command of Quintilius Varus, with the superintendence of the territories on the right bank of the Rhine, which had been added by Drusus to the Roman dominion. He was confident in the power of his military superiority, and thought, in addition to that, to secure obedience by changing the customs and principles of the Germans, and thus converting them into useful subjects. For this purpose he took with him a great number of civil officers, lawyers, and men of letters, to introduce the new order of things. These measures roused the jealousy of a people enamoured of their freedom, and disseminated the seeds of insurrection amongst all the tribes situated between the Rhine and the Elbe. Arminius availed himself of this spirit to form alliances in opposition to Varus, amongst all the military leaders of the districts. It happened most opportunely for the purpose of Arminius, that, in the year 9 a. d., a general revolt broke out on the Roman frontiers of Dalmatia and Pannonia. It is doubtful if this was connected with the plans of Arminius, but it helped to strengthen the confederacy which had been entered into by those tribes which were in possession of the country bounded by the Rhine, the Saale, and the Elbe. This confederacy was not broken up by the treason of one of the chiefs, Segestes, the leader of the Catti, who communicated to the Roman commander the plan and the detail of the intended insurrection, which was received by Varus with the contempt which reliance upon the WUrtibere and discipline of his troops nad inspired. Arminius redoubled his assiduities to remove suspicion, if any existed, of his fidelity to the Roman cause, and succeeded, by pointing the attention of Varus to some irruptions which, at the instigation of the confederacy, had broken out on the banks of the Weser. These small but concerted disturbances were intended to inveigle the Roman commander to advance into the interior of the country; and.the leaders of the German troops in the pay of Rome, who were involved in the confederacy with Arminius, by the display of unbounded zeal and obedience, agreed in urging the Roman commander not to wait for further displays of resistance, but to advance with his three legions and the auxiliaries, and to extinguish the rebellion in its focal point. In vain did Segestes repeat his warnings. Nothing could shake the confidence of Varus in Arminius, and the confederates and the Romans plunged deeper and deeper into the heart of the country, where the snares had been laid for their destruction. Near the sources of the river Lippe, in the country of the Bructeri, after a long and wearisome march through woods and morasses, the Romans saw themselves enclosed on every side in a hollow surrounded by hills whose summits were all occupied by the natives. At this moment intelligence arrived that Arminius with the rear division, consisting of stipendaries, which he commanded, had declared against the Romans, and had been the moving spring of the whole operations. Varus saw clearly destruction before him; for though discipline and courage might prolong the contest, it could inspire no hopes of a successful issue.

Three days of suffering and ineffectual hostilities compelled the Romans to submit. Varus chose death rather than disgrace. Three Roman eagles were taken; and a limit was thus set to the advances of the Romans towards the north, which they were never afterwards enabled to pass. The Germans disgraced their victory by useless cruelties. Some of the men of letters and artiste who were taken had their hands cut off, and others were blinded. The site of this memorable event cannot be clearly ascertained by any records, but it is generally placed by the antiquarians of Germany near the sources of the rivers Lippe and Ems, not far from where now stands the small city of Detmold. The event occurred in the ninth year of our era.

When Arminius had thus restored the ancient freedom to his country, he destroyed the fortresses which the Romans had constructed on the Rhine, the Elbe, and the Weser, and exerted himself to rouse the military spirit of the Germans, and taught them to rely on that spirit rather than on the strongest fortifications. A civil war soon broke out amongst the natives themselves, and the party opposed to Arminius was headed by Segestes. That prince applied to the Romans for assistance, and was aided by their general Germanicus, when he was surrounded by the troops of Arminius. His deliverance was effected with but little loss on either side; but the wife of Arminius was taken prisoner by Segestes, and on being carried before the Roman general, maintained a spirit and dignity which is highly applauded by Tacitus. The treachery of Segestes animated the exertions of Arminius, and he was offered assistance by l>is uncle Inguiomar, a leader of a tribe, and celebrated as a warrior. Arminius attempted also to gain to his party his brother Flavius, who like himself had been educated in Italy, but who resolutely maintained his fidelity to the Roman power. Arminius desired a meeting with Flavius, and they saw and conversed with each other across the river Weser. The expostulations and the inducements of Arminius were ineffectual; the brothers became exasperated against each other, and would have proceeded to feats of arms if they had not [7:10:477]been separated by the stream, and at length been borne away from the scene by their respective partisans.

Germanicus the Roman commander once more attacked the army of Arminius, and gained a splendid but useless victory on the plain of Idistavius, on the banks of the Weser; but having excited the suspicious jealousy of the Emperor Tiberius, the necessary succours were withheld, and Arminius was soon enabled again to make head against the Romans, and caused them to suspend their attempts on the freedom of Germany. This temporary tranquillity, however, gave rise to an intestine war.

Marobodue, a leader of the Marcomanni, but who had been educated in the court of Augustus, was enabled by his address and his power to unite many tribes of the Suevi in a confederacy with his own nation, which collectively assumed the name of the Marcomanni. At the head of this powerful league he attacked and conquered the nation of the Boii, seated in the south of Bohemia and a part of Franconia, and founded a formidable state, which extended over the Hermundurins, the Quadi, the Longobards, and the Semnones, and could bring into the field 70,000 warriors. Augustus had given orders to Tiberius to suppress with twelve legions the power of Marobodue, but a general insurrection of the Dalmatian tribes compelled him to conclude a peace which secured to him no benefit. The subsequent disasters of the Romans in Western Germany suspended all attacks on the Marcomanni, who continued to excite insurrections in the south of Germany.

Two great powers were thus formed, the Marcomanni and the Cherusci, the one under Marobodue and the other under Arminius. Between these, dissensions speedily arose. On one side the Longobards and the Semnones, wearied by the oppressions of Marobodus, deserted his party and united with the Cherusci; and on the other side Inguiomer, the uncle of Arminius, from jealousy of his nephew, was induced to pass from his party to that of the Marcomanni. After a war between these two confederations, which was carried on with all that systematic regularity which the two commanders had learned in the Roman legions, the Cherusci remained conquerors. Tiberius, instead of giving that aid to Marobodus which he eagerly asked, left him exposed during two years to the attacks of Catualda the Goth, who compelled him to abandon his territory and seek refuge amongst the Romans; and Catualda was soon exposed to the same fate by the hostilities of the Hermundurins, who had obtained the lead among the confederates which were headed by Arminius.

The death of Arminius occurred in the year 21 a. d., at the age of thirty-seven years, during the twelve last of which he had gloriously and happily conducted the affairs of his country with the applause of his followers, to whom, after his death, he continued an object of the highest veneration. He was indeed suspected of designs to introduce royalty and to assume the kingly dignity, but it is now impossible to confirm or refute the charge which has been brought against his memory.

After the death of their leader, the Cherusci, owing to interna disputes, gradually lost the rank they had held, and at length allowed the Romans to nominate a king of their country, who assumed the name of Italicus, and was the last branch of the family 0 f Arminius. Under him they quarrelled with their allies the Longobards, and soon sunk down into an insignificant tribe, inhabiting the district to the south of the Hartz Mountains. About the same time, in the west of Germany, the Catti raised themselves to a state of some consideration, and, whilst the Romans were occupied in suppressing an insurrection of the Frisii, seized the fortresses constructed on the Rhine. They were assailed by Galba, and induced to cede the territory included between the Lahn, the Maine, and the Rhine, to the Romans, who parcelled it out among the most meritorious of their warriors. In the year 58 the Catti and the Hermunduri contended for the salt springs on the river Saale in Franconia. The numerous followers of Marobodus and of Catualda had established themselves about the same time on the Danube, between the rivers Gran and Morava, and there, under Vannius, whom they had received as a king from the Romans, founded a new kingdom, which was soon felt to be oppressive to the people. Although Vannius had found allies in the Sarmatian Jaziges, yet he could not resist the confederacy formed against him by the Hermunduri, Lygerii, and the Western Quadi, but fled from his kingdom and took refuge with the Romans, when he was succeeded by his nephew Sido, who had performed some important services for the Emperor Vespasian. In the west the Batavians, by an obstinate struggle, shook the Roman power, which was only retained by extraordinary exertions. About this period began the war which finally terminated in the downfall of Rome. The Suevi were attacked by the Lygerii, and applied for aid to Domitian, who sent them a hundred horse soldiers, the smallness of which number was deemed an affront, and induced them to form a confederacy with the Jaziges, which threatened Dacia and Pannonia. Domitian was defeated, but Trajan proved more successful; but afterwards war broke out more fiercely under Antoninus Philosophus. The barbarians disquieted the empire on two sides without cessation. On one side small but numerous hordes of the Goths arrived in Dacia to establish themselves by force of arms; but these were removed by having a still better country pointed out to them in a southern direction. But the more terrific hostilities were those carried on by the Marcomanni, who had combined with the Hermunduri and the Quadi. Marcus Aurelius contended with them during his whole life; and Commodus purchased a peace with them in 180 a. d. At the same time the Catti laid waste Rhaetia and Gaul, and the Cherusci drove the Longobards back on the Elbe, and advanced themselves under the name of Franks. About the year 220 a. d. new tribes of Germans assailed the falling empire. The Visigoths, the Gepides, and Herulians, attacked the Romans in Dacia; whilst about the same time a new race called the Alemanni, a mixed tribe, of Sclavonic origin, made their appearance in Southern Germany, in opposition to whom was constructed the celebrated Vallum Romanorum, the traces of which are still visible from Jaxthausen to Öhringen. The power of Rome gradually sunk, partly from the constant and increasing hostilities of the Germans and other barbarous tribes, and partly from internal dissensions. As that empire was weakened, the Franks advanced to Spain, and under Probus conquered also the Batavian peninsula. Thus the Franks and Alemanns remained the most powerful of the German nation. The former of these lost the Batavian territory to the Saxons, and the latter were humbled before the Romans in the last victory obtained by that mighty people. At the beginning of the fifth century the barbarians assailed the empire on every side. The Vandals, Suevi, and Alani became masters of Gaul and Spain. They were followed by the successful Burgundians and the Western Goths; to the Burgundians succeeded the Franks, to the Western Goths succeeded the Eastern Goths, and to them the Lombards. Then began that stream of emigration which poured from the north to the south, and, as a conquering power, became the founders of the subsequent European kingdoms. A new change was given to the face of Europe by those vast emigrations of people, mostly Germans, though some came from countries farther eastward than Germany, which gradually overspread and subdued the west, introduced new forms of society, and framed languages, which, with but little variation, have continued till the present time. The new states, [7:10:478]formed out of what had previously been portions of the Roman empire, though often at war with each other, and differing in smaller matters, chiefly arising from difference of soil and climate, were united in one similar system of policy and domestic government, and had those common habits strengthened by the providential introduction of the Christian religion, to which, though varying in some points of faith, they all in process of time professed adherence. We have here space only for a slight sketch of the history of those emigrations the beneficial effects of which we now enjoy, and to which, during a period of more than a thousand years, Europe has been indebted for the great advancement in the arts and the policy of civilization which has raised it above the other portions of the habitable globe.

These emigrations, which thus revolutionized Europe, began from the Frozen Ocean, extended themselves to the Atlantic Sea, and stretched over a portion of Northern Africa. They continued from the year 375, when the Huns first broke into Europe, till 568, when the Lombards had completed their conquest of the Roman empire. The causes of these excursions of whole tribes were various, arising in some cases from excessive population, in others from the pressure of more remote tribes, and in aD from the charms of the beautiful and well-cultivated provinces which the Romans had gradually added to their dominions. At a more early period single tribes in small parties had changed their domicils, and thereby prepared the way for the greater emigrations. The constant conquests of the too extended empire began in the middle of the third century to make it totter under its own weight. Some powerful emperors, indeed, especially Constantine and Theodosius, suspended its fall; but others, under the pressure of circumstances, and from short-sighted policy, had taken parties of the barbarians into their pay, and, as a reward for their military services, had granted them lands to establish themselves on, on the frontiers of the empire. In this way settlements were granted to the Franks in Belgian Gaul, and to the Alani, the Vandals, and the Goths, in Dacia, Pannonia, and Thrace.

Many individuals of skill and courage were appointed to offices of high power and trust, and two of them, Ruffin and Stilicho, to the command of armies. The consequence of this was, that as they improved in education, they became fully acquainted with the weakness of the Roman government, and accustomed themselves to consider it as a prey, on which in due time they might seize.

The first movement towards the emigrations was given from the farthest part of Northern Asia, where a wild and warlike tribe, probably of Mongul or Kalmuck origin, were settled on the confines of China. These, expelled from their own settlements about the end of the first century,extended themselves towards the west, and drove the Alani, a tribe from Caucasus, out of Asiatic Sarmatia, and also dislodged the Western Goths, who were settled in ancient Dacia, and in the district between the Dniester, the Danube, and the Vistula. A portion of the Alani, after long wanderings, arrived on the Danube in what is now Hungary; connected themselves there with the Vandals, an original north German colony, who had been planted there about one hundred years, and, together, pressed forward into Germany, where they further strengthened themselves by a union with the Suevi, another German tribe which had been settled on the Upper Danube. These three populations, thus united, pressed forward to the Rhine, passed that river into Gaul, captured Mayence, Strasburg, and other flourishing cities, and devastated the whole country.

After these united people had in a few years spread desolation over a great part of Gaul, they pressed on towards the Pyrenees, and entered Spain. They subdued nearly the whole of that country about the year 411, divided it by lot amongst themselves, and left a very small portion of it only in the possession of the Roman garrisons. They however retained their former discipline and courage, and formed an alliance with some of the Western Goths who had penetrated into Spain, and attacked the conquerors. The Alani, who had founded a kingdom in Lusitania, now Portugal, were completely overcome in 418; and the remnant of them, after their defeat, received protection from the Vandals; and hence from that time their name is no more to be found. They carried on the war with the Romans, and thereby gained the ascendency over them, when, in 427, they formed the resolution to pass over into Africa. The kingdom founded there by Genseric, after maintaining itself a hundred and five years, was at last subdued by Belisarius, the general of the Greek emperor Justinian. The Suevi, who after the departure of the Vandals remained in Spain, extended and maintained their power till they were defeated and scattered by the W r eβtern Goths in 584. The Huns, with whom these movements had originated, established themselves in 377 in Pannonia, whence, conducted by their king Attila, they made a wasting campaign in Gaul; but that leader having met with a signal defeat in 451, turned towards Italy, and could scarcely be induced to spare Rome itself and to quit Italy. After his death in 453 the kingdom of the Huns disappeared, its inhabitants having been scattered and lost among the tribes of the Goths and Gepides.

The most dangerous enemies of the Romans were the Goths, to whom reference has before been made. They were a tribe of Germans originally established in East Prussia, on the shores of the Baltic, but had extended themselves through Poland, to the Black Sea, and had spread themselves over the Roman provinces on the Danube. In the third century, Rome found it necessary, or at least convenient, to allow of their establishment in Dacia. This powerful nation, the first amongst the Germane who embraced the Christian religion, was divided into two branches. The Eastern Goths were established on the river Don and the Black Sea, and the Western Goths between the Dniester, the Danube, and the Vistula. As they were assailed by the advancing Huns, and compelled to abandon their settlements about the year 375, the Romans conceded to them other settlements in the interior of their empire. The Western Goths, under their king Alaric, attacked the Romans in Italy in 403, several times assailed Rome itself, and conquered and plundered it in

410. His successor Ataulf led his followers into Gaul in

411, and from thence into Spain, where was erected the largest Gothic kingdom, which from 624 comprehended the whole of the Peninsula, with a part of France and some portions of Africa, and was only terminated in 711, by the victory of the invading Moors at the battle of Xeres.

The Eastern Goths had been settled by the Romans in the country of Moesia, now known by the names of Bulgaria and of Servia. Odoacer, the chief of two German tribes, the Heruli and the Rugieri, who had served under the Roman standards, became the master of Rome and of all Italy. But he was subdued by Theodoric king of the Western Goths, who thus succeeded to supreme power in Italy in the year 493.

Though Theodoric was one of the greatest characters of his age, the kingdom he founded proved but of short duration. The Emperor Justinian, after his successes in Africa, attacked the power of the Goths, and by his generals, first Belisarius and afterwards Narses, once more, in 554, restored Italy to the dominion of the Greek empire. The Gothic sovereigns then disappeared, and in a few years no trace of them remained except their name, which has been applied to a peculiar style of architecture.
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A few years after the fall of the Gothic kingdom, the greater part of Italy fell under the power of the Longobards or Lombards. According to some accounts, they were a tribe from Scandinavia, but according to others, a branch of the great German family of the Suevi, who in earlier times had inhabited those parts on the Elbe which are now known as Luneburg, and who had, after various excursions, been settled in Pannonia about 527. They advanced from thence, in 568, towards Italy, and under their king Alboin made a conquest of nearly the whole peninsula; a feat which was easily effected, owing to its desolatq. and depopulated condition. The chief opposition they encountered was from the city of Pavia, which, after a siege of three years, was captured in 572, and made the capital of the kingdom. Lombardy flourished during two centuries, till it fell under the power of the Emperor Charlemagne in the year 774.^[1. ' See Luden’s Ge,chichte de, Dcut,chen Volke,, 2 und 3 theil; also Sartorius De occupatione ct diviňone agrorum Romanorum per barba, το, Germanica: ,lirpit, įc. 1812. ¾ ]

The history of Germany between the years 560 and 670 is wholly destitute of the materials necessary to frame a consecutive narrative. The only writer of the period was Gregory bishop of Tours, and his attention was wholly engrossed by the events of the Frank kingdom which had sprung up in Gaul, and had begun to decline, the manners, laws, and customs of which he has faithfully represented. The only part of his voluminous work which relates to Germany, is an account of an alliance formed between the Bavarians and Longobards, which offended the Franks, and proved the cause of hostile movements, which, however, were speedily and pacifically terminated in 589. From the death of Dagobert in 632, the dominions of the Frankish kings of the Merovingian race were gradually diminished. One portion after another fell into the hands of great lay or ecclesiastical feudatories; but these circumstances seem to have had little effect on the German tribes. They scarcely interfered in the Frankish contests; and though not without internal controversies and contentions, these were of local and temporary importance only, and seldom produced extensive or calamitous convulsions. Preparations for defence against the Franks were carried on; some fortresses were constructed, and military discipline was maintained. But the most distinguished feature of the century, was the spread of the Christian faith. A saint from Ireland, with his assistants, laboured amongst the German tribes with great diligence and success. The cross of Christ had been planted among them, and publicly acknowledged as their standard; but the remains of heathenism, with its superstitions, were cherished by the great mass of the rude people, and the sacred rites of the Druids were performed in their hallowed groves.

St Columba indeed found almost everywhere Christian priests, but their knowledge was slight, many of their ceremonies were idolatrous, their faith was wavering, and, what to the Irish saint was most annoying, their dependence on the see of Rome slightly if at all acknowledged.

The success of the Irish missionaries is much lauded by the monkish writers of the ages that followed their exertions; and whatever effect they may have produced upon the manners and morals of the Germans, it must be acknowledged that they were successful in bringing that people into that close connection with the great head of the Christian church, which became, in a succession of centuries, under the guidance of Providence, one of the means of their advancement in civilization.

During the same period was laid the foundation of those small sovereign states which successively grew up in Germany under ecclesiastical and lay chiefs, who bore the titles of archbishops, bishops, abbots, princes, dukes, counts, margraves, landgraves, and barons. These, in process of time, had the indirect choice of the emperor, who assumed the title of Chief of the Holy Roman Empire, and was elected to that dignity by princes called electors, who were independent, though nominally the household officers of the reigning emperor. The emperor Charlemagne was the real founder of the holy Roman empire, although that name was not given to it until a later period. He was of the race of the Frankish kings, the son of Pepin and the grandson of Charles Martel, and, jointly with his brother Carloman, ascended the throne of Gaul in 768. He was one of those extraordinary characters calculated to change the face of the civilized world. The history of his actions, during a long and glorious reign of forty-seven years, would relate his transactions in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, but must here be restricted to those which relate to the last of those countries. (See article France.) The death of Carloman in 771 gave him the sole command of France, and his authority extended over Italy and a portion of Germany. He wished to obtain more power in that direction, and resolved to attack the Saxons, and made religion one of the pretexts for his attempt. The Saxons were a pagan people settled in Holstein and Westphalia, between the Weset and the Elbe, and, like all people in a barbarous state, thought themselves warranted by this independence in making incursions on their neighbours. They were frequently defeated, and made treaties of peace, which they soon broke, and thus continued until they were completely subdued in 803, when Charlemagne settled some ol them in Flanders, and others in Switzerland, whilst the country was occupied by a Vandal tribe from Mecklenburg.

This long resistance of so weak a power was owing to the enlistments of the troops of Charlemagne being bul for one year, and to the other wars in which he was engaged with the Lombards, the Danes, aad the Saracens, aı well as with some of the feudatories in his patrimonial dominions. He had long nourished the desire-to become emperor of the West, and had negotiated a treaty of marriage with Irene, empress of Constantinople, which woulc have led to a general union of all Christendom under ont head, but which was frustrated by the death of that princess. He was, however, in the year 800, crowned in Rome, by Pope Leo III. and acknowledged as emperor of the West in all the extensive dominions he had obtained. He reigned as emperor fourteen years, and died in 814, al Aachen or Aix-la-Chapelle in Germany, which had beer early selected as his favourite residence.

The German empire may be dated from the treaty ol Verdun in 843, by which the Frankish kingdom was divided. Lorraine was added to it in 924. Otto the Grea∣ brought the kingdom of Italy in 961, and the imperial dominions in that country in 962, into close connection witl the empire of Germany, which then for the first time received the appellation of the Holy Roman Empire. Bui the Italian states were rather feudatories than subjects o: that empire, and this slight bond was in a few years dissolved. Bohemia was a part of the empire under Otto and continued to be so considered until a later period For a short time the kings of Denmark owned allegiance on account of Jutland, and the king of Poland on accoum of Silesia, a state of things which continued till 1355 Hungary was also a part of the empire from 1045 till the reign of Henry IV. Prussia likewise, the possession ol the Teutonic order, stood in the same relation to the empire from 1230 to 1525, and Livonia from 1205 to 1556.
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The Emperor Conrad II., in 1033, united a part of the kingdom of Lower Burgundy with the empire, which thus comprehended Franche-Comté, Dauphine, the Lyonnois, West Switzerland, Provence, and Savoy. These portions were, however, one after another separated from it; and in 1648, when Switzerland and the United Netherlands were declared independent, none of them remained to the empire but Savoy, Mompelgard, and the bishopric of Basil. The principles which regulated the intercourse of the emperor with the several princes, and of those princes with each other, were grounded, not, as in other states, on charters granted by the chief, but on resolutions adopted at various times amongst the several states in general assemblies. The most memorable of these resolutions were, lit, that of internal peace in 1495; 2<7Zy, the Golden Bull, so called from having a seal of gold appended to it. This was agreed to under the Emperor Charles IV. in 1356, and confirmed at two subsequent diets or assemblies, which were held at Nuremburg and Metz. The chief object of it was to secure to the several states the right of independent voting in the election of an emperor. Sdlÿ, The treaty of Passau in 1552, or rather that concluded in consequence of it at Augsburg in 1555. This treaty established religious peace, and conferred on the several sovereigns who had embraced the Lutheran religion the free exercise of it in their dominions; and to the subjects the right to change their religion, and to leave the dominions without permission from the princes. ⅛thly, The treaty of Westphalia, concluded in 1648, which extended freedom of religion to those who had embraced the reformed or Calvinistic religion, as well as to the Lutherans.

Germany was divided, in 1500, under the Emperor Maximilian I. into six circles, viz. Franconia, Bavaria, Suabia, Upper Rhine, Westphalia, and Saxony. These were increased in 1512 to ten, by adding to them the circles of Austria and Burgundy, and forming two circles out of that of Saxony, and two out of that of the Rhine. But Lausatia, Silesia, Bohemia, Moravia, and other countries, though encompassed by the empire, were nevertheless not included in it. Each of these circles had at its head an ecclesiastical and a lay prince, who assembled the states of the circle, communicated between the emperor and them, and called their attention to the civil or military affairs of the body. Besides these, each circle had a military chief, generally denominated the field-marshal, who commanded the forces, and had the care of providing subsistence, arms, and other stores. In the assembly of the states a majority decided every question; but the decision required to be conformable to the general laws of the empire.

After the reformation of religion at the treaty of Westphalia, the circles were divided into Catholic, Protestant, and mixed. The circles of Austria, Bavaria, and Burgundy belonged to the first; to the second appertained Saxony; and to the third the remainder.

The imperial dignity was retained by the family of Charlemagne till the year 888. After that time it was elective, although for a long period there was a general adherence to the family which had been once chosen. At the commencement, the emperor was elected by the whole of the princes, whether lay or ecclesiastical; but during an interregnum, which lasted from 1197 to 1272, the highest or arch-princes, called kurfursten, assumed the exclusive right of electing, and by a subsequent union amongst themselves, at the election of Charles IV. in 1356, secured the power they claimed. Frankfort was the place of election to which the Archbishop of Mentz summoned the princes or their ambassadors who were allowed to vote; but none of them was to be attended by more than two hundred followers, of whom only fifty were permitted to be armed. All strangers, even sovereigns, and the ambassadors of foreign potentates, were commanded to leave the city on the day of election. After the choice had been concluded, the person chosen, or his representative for him, required to take the prescribed oaths to maintain the golden bull and the several capitulations. He was then led into St Bartholomew’s Church, and declared emperor. At an early period the pope was requested to crown the emperor; butin 1338 it was ordered by Louis the Bavarian, that the dignity and power should be assumed without the ceremony of papal assent or consecration. The coronation was fixed by Charlemagne to be performed at Aix-la-Chapelle; but it was afterwards enacted at Frankfort, whence the standards and jewels used on the occasion were removed, part to Nuremburg, and part to Aix-la-Chapelle.

It became usual, during the lifetime of an emperor, to choose a successor to the imperial dignity; and the person so chosen was designated king of the Romans. This institution first arose in 1220, when Henry VIL, a son of the Emperor Frederick II., was elected. He was bound to take oaths similar to those enjoined upon the emperor; but during his lifetime he was forbidden to mingle in the public business of the empire. In case of the death, of the minority, or of a protracted absence of the emperor, the golden bull had provided that the Prince of Saxony should exercise vicariate power in Saxony and Westphalia, and the Prince of Alsace similar power in Franconia, Suabia, and the Rhenish circles. They could call assemblies, collect and control the finances, and administer justice; but they had no power to grant imperial dignities or feudal estates. In neither of the circles of Austria or Bavaria was any provision made for the exercise of this vicariate power.

The states of the empire, or general assembly, consisted of the clergy and laity, who held their property direct from the empire. The first comprehended the archbishops, bishops, prelates, abbots, abbesses, and the masters of the Teutonic and St John’sorders; the second included arch-princes, dukes-princes, landgraves, margraves, burgraves, graffs or counts, and the free imperial cities. After the peace of Westphalia, the states were divided into the Catholic and the Protestant portions, who on many subjects deliberated and resolved separately. Whilst the inferior princes exercised the executive and legal authority within their own states, those greater affairs which related to the empire in general, and to the respective connection of one sovereignty with another, were brought under the notice of the general assembly, in which the emperor presided either personally or by his commissary, who was always a prince of the empire, and who was attended by an assessor. The assembly was divided into three benches or colleges, in which every thing was decided by a majority of voices; but at a subsequent sitting they were united, and then the majority of the three benches determined the final resolution. Many subjects were intrusted to the examination of imperial deputations or committees. The power of making war or concluding peace belonged to the assembly, but was sometimes intrusted solely to the emperor, though only in pressing emergencies. The emperor had originally the power of nominating to the ecclesiastical dignities; but the popes gradually so intruded their authority, as to reduce the monarch’s power to almost a shadow. After the peace of Westphalia, the empire was divided between the three religions. In the Catholic states, the pope and the bishops had usurped the judicial power, and administered it according to the canon law. In the Protestant parts, all the juridical power of the church was abolished, and the affairs of religion were left to the management of consistories chosen from among the subjects, in most cases on the nomination of the princes.

The power of coining money appertained originally to [7:10:481]the emperor, but was gradually obtained by several of the chiefs of the respective states; but the fineness and the weight of the coin were directed by the authority of the emperor and the general assembly. The tolls on certain rivers and roads, the regulation of the great fairs of Frankfort, Brunswick, and Leipsic, and the conveyance of letters by post, as well as providing post-horses, were the regalia of the emperor; and the latter were granted hereditarily to die prince of taxes, whose successors, even to the present day, have some power and some profit connected with them. The degrees in the universities were conferred in the name of the emperor; and, through α prince named by him, called the Pfabzgrave, the doctors, licentiates, advocates, solicitors, notaries, and other legal officers, were admitted to practise their professions in the courts of law.

The finances of Germany, viewed as one empire, were under the direction of the general assembly. The contributions were called Roman months, each of which amounted to a force of 20,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry; and the number of these months which were granted to the emperor was adapted to the occasion that required them. These were divided among the several states, and called their contingents. They were, however, in process bf time, frequently converted into payments in money, at stipulated rates. In later times each Roman month was estimated at 128,000 florins, or about L. 12,000 sterling. This tax was paid either at Augsburg, Frankfort, Nuremburg, or at Leipsic, and the collectors of it were called Pfenning-meister.

Many of the individual princes were under greater or less restraint ja the exercise of power, from the rights of their state assemblies; and when there was a collision between them, an appeal was made to the imperial tribunals. To those courts the princes were answerable for the debts they incurred, and by them their dominions were on some occasions put in a state of sequestration; but in other of the principalities there were no assemblies of the states, and consequently less limitation of powers, though in them the sovereign could be brought under the authority of the imperial chamber, and obliged to fulfil his engagements.

This sketch of the ancient constitution of the German empire is interesting, from the length of time which it lasted, and from having, during ten centuries, with all its complexity and impediments, preserved, among the many independent states of which it was composed, a feeling of nationality, which is still cherished by all who are descended from the rude and ancient tribes of German origin. This constitution gave to Germany but little other unity, and less power, and rendered the greatest of the European kingdoms the weakest of them all. It kept them, however, from suffering the misery of a conquered and an oppressed people, and has led them to a degree of intellectual culture, in which they have been equalled by few, and exceeded by no other nation. Perhaps the distribution of the territory in such small sovereignties was one of the most effectual means of advancing and securing that reformation of religion, which all Protestants regard as one of the greatest blessings to the whole human race.

The history of Germany in modern times is so much connected with that of the rest of Europe, especially during the wars of the last and the present century, that a narration of it would only be a repetition of what is to be found in this work under the heads of Europe, France, and especially Britain ; and to them the reader is referred.

The peace of Presburg m December 1805 first gave occasion for the dissolution of the ancient constitution of Germany. By that treaty the Dukes of Bavaria and Wurtemberg were raised to the rank of kings, and the Prince of Bad Ĵ n ,o a l à° f ⅛ ntlent sovereign. Soon afterwards (28th May 1806) th c arch-chancellor of the empire declared to the assembled diet, that, though contrary to law, he had nominated Cardinal Fesch, the uncle of Bonaparte, as his coadjutor and successor; and on the 12th of July the new kings of Bavaria and Wurtemberg, and sixteen other princes, formally announced to the Emperor Francis II. their separation from the empire, and invited the other princes to join them in a new alliance. The Emperor Francis on the 6th of August issued a declaration of his withdrawing from the head of the empire, abandoning the title of Emperor of Germany, and assuming that of Emperor of Austria.

In the room of this dissolved constitution, of nearly a thousand years’ continuance, the several states which had been accomplices in its destruction, with some others added to them, formed what was called the Confederation of the Rhine, which, by February 1808, had received the adhesion of most of the princes, and placed Bonaparte at its head, under the title of protector. Two years afterwards, the protector, by his sole decree, united the rivers Scheldt, Meuse, Rhine, Ems, Weser, and the mouths of the Elbe, to France, and robbed of their dominions several of the smaller princes, whom he had contracted to defend. With these augmentations he continued his aggressions till the dispersion of his army in Russia.

As the events which produced the deliverance of Germany from the yoke of France belong to the history of that country as much as to this, our notices of it here must be brief. After the destruction of that vast army which penetrated into Russia, almost all the states of the north of Germany, with Prussia at their head, declared war against France. An army was quickly collected from the French conscription, and, with a wonderful celerity, Bonaparte, at its head, was enabled to penetrate into Saxony, to threaten Prussia, and exhibit a force which he supposed would overawe Austria. The battles of Lutzen and Dresden, in 1813, produced an armistice, during the continuance of which negotiations for peace between Russia and Prussia on one side, and France on the other, were carried on under the mediation of the Emperor of Austria. But as peace could not be concluded, Austria was induced to join the allies against France. During these periods a spirit had risen in Germany which animated all classes of its inhabitants, so that those powers which still clung to the interests of France could place no reliance on the support of their subjects. Bonaparte, overpowered by numbers, with an army of raw troops from his own dominions, and with troops of doubtful fidelity from the dominions of his allies, was surrounded, and, after being compelled to retreat from Dresden, fought the important battle of Leipsic against the armies of Russia, Austria, Prussia, and Sweden. The issue of that battle was not considered as doubtful even from its commencement; but, during the contest, the Saxon division of the army marched from their station in the French line, and took up their position with the Prussians. The result of the battle was a hurried retreat from Leipsic to the frontier of France, which was then the river Rhine. On the retreat to the Rhine, the shattered remains of the French army were interrupted by the forces of Bavaria. A battle was fought at Hanau, about twelve miles from Frankfort, which, though gained by the French, tended only to hasten their flight, and led to the loss of much that remained of their stores, arms, and ammunition.

By the end of the year 1813, the French were totally expelled from every part of Germany, and the occupation of Paris by the allies, early in 1814,' led to general tranquillity. The Congress of Vienna soon afterwards met, and never was a body of plenipotentiaries plunged into such a labyrinth of difficulties. The great extent of country which had been delivered, and was without any government; the number of claims urged either from previous possession, or from active service in effecting the deliverance[7:10:482]; were such as to perplex with difficulties which appeared to be nearly insuperable, and, in whatever way they were terminated, must necessarily have left great dissatisfaction. They were, however, so settled as to leave Germany in the state described in the preceding pages; and whether they could have been adjusted with more regard to the principles of equity is not for us to decide.

The return of Bonaparte from Elba produced most gigantic efforts upon the part of all those smaller sovereigns who had been reinstated in their dominions by his downfall. The number of troops actually mustered and prepared to march when the battle of Waterloo took place and suspended them, amounted to more than 1,200,000 men. They were not indeed all armed, but many more men could have been raised if arms for them could have been procured. These efforts, added to the costly exertions made in the war of the deliverance, have encumbered with debts almost every state, as is noticed in the detailed account of them. These debts, however, have not been solely created by the events in question. The ephemeral kingdom of Westphalia, formed for Jerome Bonaparte, extended over Hanover, Brunswick, and Cassel, as well as the circle from which it was denominated. During his government, aD the different portions of his kingdom had incurred vast debts in executing his projects. These debts were owing to individuals or corporate bodies within the dominions attached by the congress to their new sovereigns; and the princes, for the sake of the people, were compelled to assume the debts, and provide means for their liquidation, and the payment in the mean time of the interest. Thus the ungrateful task of providing for the expenditure attending the subjection of their states, as well as for their liberation, became one of the first duties on their resumption of power. This odious consequence of former circumstances has been industriously improved by the enemies of tranquillity, and has created considerable discontent.

These feelings of discontent were chiefly confined to writers in periodical papers of the smaller kind, and to associations amongst the young men in those universities in which the discipline was the most relaxed. The demonstrations of this dissatisfied state of the public mind were few, and scarcely noticed except in narrow circles. The murder of Kotzebue by Sandt, and a similar attempt on the life of Ibell, the minister of Nassau, were tokens of great excitement amongst a few fanatics; but the judicial inquiries which followed these transactions seemed to the governments to prove that the mischievous views of insurrection or assassination were confined to a very narrow circle. There was no interruption to the full exercise of the powers of the law, nor any necessity for increasing the military establishments. The Revolution in Paris in 1830 produced, however, considerable excitement in several parts of Germany, particularly in Hanover and in Saxony, and also in Brunswick, though in the latter country it was more owing to the personal character and conduct of the sovereign, which led to his deposition and to the investing of the power in the hands of his brother. In Hanover, the suspension of the university of Gottingen, and the mild but firm measures of the government, soon led to tranquillity; and in Saxony, though some mischief was effected, it was but of short duration, and the kingdom soon returned to that tranquil state which is habitual to the greater part of its inhabitants. The establishment of the present German confederation, consisting of ambassadors from all the states, in number proportioned to their extent and population, has concentrated the power of the whole body of the princes, and appears calculated to give stability to ancient and respected institutions. These representatives were seventy in number, but are now reduced to sixty-nine,^[2. This diminution of the number has been caused by the duchy of Saxe∙Gotha having been divided between two other states. ] as appears by the table which follows; and in some cases they act by a committee of seventeen. In the general body, two thirds are required to make a law; in the smaller body a bare majority is sufficient, but in both assemblies Austria and Prussia have a great preponderance. Austria is the president in both these bodies, and has the casting vote when an equality of opinions is experienced. It is not our design to condemn or applaud the constitution; but it is powerful to suppress insurrection, and to propagate general regulations, and is said to have been found highly beneficial in the arrangement of differences between the governments of the several states of which it is composed.

Within the limits of Germany are portions of kingdoms, parts of the territory of which are not within the sphere of the confederation; thus Austria, Prussia, the Netherlands, and Denmark, have parts only of Germany within their dominions, and therefore will here receive such notice as is merely necessary to give a view of the whole of Germany. Austria and Denmark have already been noticed in this work, and the kingdoms of the Netherlands and of Prussia will occur in their alphabetical order.

The four kingdoms of Bavaria, Hanover, Saxony, and Wurtemberg, are too important to be wholly included in a general article. Bavaria has been already treated of separately, and the other three will be noticed in their proper places.

According to its present boundaries, Germany extends from 45° to 54° 20 , north latitude, and from 5° 43 , to 20° 50 ’ east longitude from London. It is bounded on the north by the German Ocean, by Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; on the east by West Prussia, Poland, Cracow, Gallicia, and Illyria; on the south by the Adriatic Sea, Italy, and the Helvetic provinces; on the east by France and the kingdom of the Netherlands. Its whole extent, including'rivers and lakes, is 248,832 English square miles.

The southern part of Germany is either covered or penetrated with steep mountains, one part of which extends from the Alps, and the other from the Carpathian range. These mountains gradually lose themselves in advancing northward; and from the last of them, the Hartz, upon the confines of Hanover, begins that vast plain which extends over the north of Germany, through Prussia and Poland, and a considerable part of Russia. This plain was probably covered by the water long after the more southern parts had emerged from the ocean, the evidences of which are apparent in the turf moors of the sandy districts, where expensive embankments and dikes are necessary to preserve the land from inundation.

The soil is generally productive. The plains in the north have indeed much arid sandy land; but nature has provided along the borders of the rivers some rich and fruitful soils, where the most abundant harvests are gathered. The south has also on its mountains much barren or slightly productive land; but the beautiful valleys and small plains between the hills rival in fertility the best alluvial lands on the banks of the northern rivers. In general the soil in the north is heavy, and in the south light; the former most adapted for corn, and the latter for vines. The best soil is in the middle, between the mountains and the sandy plains. In Bohemia, Silesia, Franconia, Saxony, and on the Rhine, the proportion of good soil is much greater than in the north or the south.

Some of the loftiest mountains of Germany are those springing from the great mass of the Alps, and divided into [7:10:483]the Rhoetian and the None; and several of the peaks of these reach the line of perpetual snow. The eastern branch of the Noric chain runs through the Austrian dominions, and loses one part of that chain in Silesia, whilst another enters Hungary. The other branch runs through Bavaria and Wurtemberg, to the west of the Black Forest, and is connected with the Odenwald, the Fichtelgebirge, and the mountains of Thuringia. It stretches to the Hartz, and the mountains through which the Weser forces its passage, soon after which it is lost. Several other chains branch from these greater ones; and some of their peaks attain a considerable elevation. The principal mountains, and their height above the level of the sea, are as follows; but in their progress to the north their gradual declension in height is remarkable :—
[table]

The mountains are generally covered with forests; to the southward, where they are the most lofty, with pines; and to the northward, with various deciduous trees. If at the present day the terra tylυis horrida of Tacitus cannot be found in Germany, it is still the most abundantly wooded territory in Europe.

Germany has seven large rivers which pass through it to the sea; and in their passage receive the various smaller streams which issue from the mountains, and spread fertility over this well-watered country. The Danube rises in the dukedom of Baden, becomes navigable for small craft at Ulm, receives the large rivers Lech, Iser, Inn, Ens, and March, and, after a course of 430 miles, exclusively of its curvatures, waters Hungary in its way to the Black Sea. The Rhine, rising in Switzerland, and navigable from its entrance into Germany, has a course, exclusive of its windings, of 460 miles, before it enters the kingdom of the Netherlands. In its progress it receives the navigable rivers Neckar, Lahn, and Moselle, the Saar, the Roer, and the Lippe.

The Weser rises in middle Germany, from two springs which form the Fulda and the Werra, and at their junction takes the name which it carries to the ocean, and under which name it runs, without noticing its bendings, 190 miles. It becomes navigable at Minden for boats, and at Vegefach, near Bremen, for ships. The Elbe, like the Weser, from its rise to its junction with the ocean, is wholly a Ģerman river. It becomes navigable near its source, runs a course of 520 miles, and is the most considerable channel of commerce with foreign countries, through the ports of Hamburg and Altona. It receives the navigable rivers Moldau, Eger, Saale, Havel, Spree, Ilmenau, and Steckinitz, besides fifty smaller streams. The Oder becomes navigable for boats at Ratisbon, and running, in the Prussian part of Germany, a course of 380 miles, empties itself into the Baltic Sea in Pomerania. It receives the rivers Bober, Neisse, and Warthe, besides many smaller streams. The Eloch is the only German river which runs to the Adriatic Sea. It passes through the Tyrol, and only becomes navigable after it has entered Italy. The Ems is a river of short course, rising in Prussia, and passing through the province of East Friesland, now belonging to Hanover, whence it becomes navigable, and soon enters the sea near the city of Emden in two branches.

The forming a junction between these great rivers, by means of canals, is an object of vast importance, and some progress towards effecting it has been made. The Holstein Canal unites the German Ocean with the Baltic Sea from the river Eider. The Plauen Canal unites the Havel with the Elbe, or rather facilitates and shortens the passage. The Finnow Canal forms a communication between the Havel and the Oder. The Frederick William’s Canal unites the Spree and the Oder. The Pappenburg Canal is designed to unite the Ems with the Elbe. Lastly, the Vienna Canal is now completed, and forms a communica* tion between the Danube and the Adriatic Sea.

The whole of Germany being in the temperate zone, though, from the variations of elevation and the difference of latitude, it differs in climate, is generally very healthy, The most mild and beautiful are the middle provinces, between the 48th and 51st degree. In the south, under the influence of the Alps, the air is raw and cold; whilst in the plains and open valleys the climate of the finest parts of Italy is enjoyed. The northern provinces are colder, damper, and more ungenial, and near the stagnant lakes unwholesome. The weather undergoes extreme variations, and the frost is frequently seen at a late period of the year The inhabitants there too feel the effect of heavy fogs, ant sometimes of tremendous storms. No volcanoes are no« in existence; and though the remains of them are to be seen in many places, they are not supposed to have beer in activity since the antediluvian ages. Earthquakes are scarcely felt, and have never been injuriously experienced; and the country is free from the musquitos, which so much annoy the inhabitants of Italy. Vines, maise. and rice, grow as far north as latitude 51; but beyond that they do not arrive at full perfection. The olive and the silk-worm are only raised on that small portion ol Germany to the south of the 46th degree.

The original German horses are of a very inferior race, and the specimens of them, where they have not been improved by the intermixture of other breeds, generally bad but from this must be excepted those of Mecklenburg, East Friesland, Holstein, and Luneburg, which, for draft or for heavy dragoons, are admirable races, and have beer propagated over all Europe. Horses for pleasure, or foi mounting light cavalry, must be brought from other countries; but the jennets, a light small breed, are good and quiet. Asses are not common even in the southern part of the country. Mules are to be seen in Hanover, neaι the Hartz Forest, and in the Tyrolese portion of German) they are the common beasts of burden.

The cows are of various breeds; but the handsomest are those from East Friesland, Oldenburg, Holstein, and the other provinces on the borders of the German Ocean, though generally known under the name of East Frieslanders. The Hungarian breed prevails in many parts, but is esteemed more for the ease with which the animals arc fattened than for the purposes of the dairy. A third sort o∣ cows is the Swiss breed, which does not come wholly fron ’ the Alpine regions, but is furnished by Wurtemberg, and [7:10:484]a part of Bavaria. The breed of Germany, originating from the mixture of these races, is well adapted for the dairy; but, either from want of appropriate qualities in the animals, or from the imperfect manner of fattening them, the oxen, when killed, are seldom more than 500 pounds weight, and the average of them considerably lighter. Some attempts are now making to improve the breed, by the introduction of the Tyrolese bull; perhaps the most perfect animal of the cow kind for meat and for draft, and which, when crossed with the best milkers, produces the most complete cattle. The common practice in Germany, of killing the calves from ten to sixteen days old, produces very bad veal; but some of the beef, especially near the banks of the Elbe, is excellent.

The proper German sheep are a mixture of the original coarse-woolled race, crossed by a breed from Ardennes. In a part of Illyria they have the sheep of Padua. The fine-woolled sheep of Spain have, however, been introduced by many of the princes, and have been vastly extended, especially in Saxony, Silesia, and Brandenburg, and will probably, at no distant period, be the principal, if not the sole race. The badness of their flesh is of less consequence in Germany than in England; because, in the former country, it is not worth more than the annual clipping of the wool, which can be sent to richer countries, where they can afford to pay high prices for it; but the flesh must be consumed at home, and therefore sells for little.

Goats are common in all the states, but are only to be seen in large flocks in the more mountainous parts. Swine are the most important kind of live stock in Bavaria, Westphalia, Hanover, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania. They are of three different breeds; the long white, bent in the back; the short white, or yellow, with the same kind of back; and the black, or yellow, of a short make; but these different breeds are becoming much mingled together.

The forests of Germany abound with untamed animals, which afford sport to its princes and nobles, and furnish a considerable quantity of aliment to the higher and middle classes of the people, as the noble sportsmen generally sell their prey, and are obliged to dispose of it cheap. Wild deer of various kinds, and wild swine, are very numerous in many parts of the country. With them, foxes are found in some districts in prodigious numbers; but the hunting of these animals is less an object with sportsmen in Germany than with us, as the lynxes are very numerous, especially in the mountains in the south, and the chase of them is found to be the most exciting of all rural sports. At a hunting on the estate of one nobleman in Bohemia, during three days of 1818, more than 12,000 head of game were killed; and in Saxony between 2000 and 3000 hares were shot in one day, and sold for about one shilling each. There are bears in the southern parts, in Illyria, in the Steyermark, and the Tyrol, of the small black kind, more dangerous to the bee-hives, and the smaller animals, than to man. Wolves are few now, and only found in the Trans-Rhenish provinces. In some of the mountains the beaver is found, though but rarely, and some other animals, principally valuable for their fur. The most annoying animal is the field-mouse, of a species called the hamster, which is found in thousands in Saxony, and does incredible injury to the productions of the soil. In the months between the 9th May and the 9th September 1817, the corporation of the city of Gotha paid rewards for killing 89,565 of these mischievous animals.

Domesticated birds are very plentiful, but especially ducks and geese. The latter form an important portion o f . t J le . on m ≡ n y of the farming establishments, especially in Pomerania, Bohemia, and the Steyermark, where most houses in the country cure from fifty to a hundred for their winter consumption. Wild birds are more numerous in Germany than in any other part of Europe. Wild geese, bustards, grouse, blackcocks, woodcocks, wild ducks, widgeons, teal, and snipes, are most abundant. Besides these, the smaller kinds of birds, as larks, thrushes, and sparrows, and the singing birds, especially bullfinches and canary birds, are plentiful. The latter are chiefly taken in the Hartz Forest, and are circulated throughout all Europe.

The three seas which border on Germany abound with fish. Besides the kinds which are caught in the ocean, the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic furnish their peculiar species. Amongst those of the former are the dersh and the klipfish (anarchico) ; and of the latter the tunny, the Sardinia, and many others. The greater part of the fish consumed in Germany is, however, the produce of the rivers and lakes, which supply in great abundance eels, lampreys, trout, salmon, sturgeon, perch, pike, salmontrout, barbel, carp, craw-fish, and many others. With these various kinds the markets in the cities are most profusely supplied.

The rearing of bees in the north, and especially in Lausatia, is productive of much honey and wax, which form important articles, both for domestic use and for foreign trade.

The great production of Germany, as of every other European country, is grain of various kinds. Wheat, rye, maize, rice, barley, oats, beans, peas, and buckwheat, are the most important of these. In the south, more wheat than rye is grown; but in the north, the proportion of rye to wheat is eight to one. In the north, most oats are cultivated; in the south, more barley. Maize and rice are peculiar to the south; buckwheat and peas are alike in every part.

The productions arising from garden culture are very great. Potatoes are sometimes cultivated with the spade, sometimes with the plough; but the increase of their growth has been very rapid of late years, and probably furnishes as much human aliment as grain. The cabbages of all the Brassica tribe receive much attention, and are raised in great quantities. Turnips are cultivated with little care, merely as food for man, andere not extensively used for feeding cattle. The superior kinds of fruit are best in the middle and southern provinces; but in the north the apples, plums, and pears, are good and most abundant. The Pearmain apple, which has spread throughout all the countries of Europe from Germany, is found in the highest perfection in Stettin, Bostock, and the Tyrol. Chestnuts and almonds are almost exclusively grown in the southern parts, towards Illyria and the Tyrol; and in the same vicinity the melons and other fruits, which in our climate and the north of Germany require artificial heat, are raised in the open air.

Vines were originally planted in Germany by the Romans. They are now cultivated successfully on the bankι of the Rhine, the Maine, the Moselle, the Danube, the Mur, the Etsch, and the Save, where they produce win¢ as highly esteemed as any in Europe. The most valued of all the wines is that produced on the banks of th< Rhine, known in England by the name of Old Hock, frorr the vineyards of Hockheim, where the best kind is made The principal sorts, from the places of their growth, are denominated Johannisberg, Rudesheim, Hockheim, Markobrunn, and Lieb∙frauenmilch. The next in value are tin wines of the Maine, called Leisten wine, Stein wine, am Steyer wine. The wines from the Danube are next iι estimation, and to them succeed those from the Tyrol ant the banks of the Moselle. The other wines near the lake o Constance, and in Bohemia, are much inferior; and thos< produced near to Naumberg, Jena, and Meissen in Saxony and to Zullichau in Silesia, are of very indifferent flavour [7:10:485]especially after a moist summer, and scarcely merit the name of wine, though, from their great abundance, they become very useful to the inhabitants.

Neither the quantity nor the quality of the oil produced from olives in Germany is material; it is conĥned to a small district of the south. Great quantities of rape and linseed oil are expressed; and for the more common purposes, the oil of herrings, seals, and other aquatic animals, is very abundant.

But the staple production of Germany is flax, which is grown in almost every village, and is spun into yarn. The best is produced in Silesia, in Westphalia, in Hanover, in Brunswick, and in Bohemia; but even these kinds do not attain a length or fineness of fibre equal to the flax of Flanders. Hemp is raised in Baden, Wurtemberg, Westphalia, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Luneburg, but scarcely produces sufficient for the consumption of the country. Tobacco has been long cultivated in Baden, on the Rhine, and near Magdeburg, and during the existence of the French continental system had been very much extended; but the return of peace checked its progress, and the cultivation of it is again confined to those parts here mentioned, where, from long habit, it has become almost indigenous. Various roots were cultivated for the production of sugar during the continuance of that system, but they now scarcely deserve notice, as they are nearly abandoned. Woad, saffron, annise-seed, cummin-seed, hops, rhubarb, camomile flowers, and Iceland-moss, are native and considerable productions. The forests of Germany, besides their abundant supply of fuel to the inhabitants, furnish much wood, both for building houses and ships; and if ever the water communication should be much extended, so as to bring the largest trees with facility to the shores of the ocean, they will become a most valuable source of wealth.

No part of Europe yields a greater variety or abundance of mineral productions, and in no part of the world are the mines worked with so much skill or so much economy. Precious stones are discovered in many parts; rock-crystal, amethysts, topazes, are found in Bavaria; calcedony, agate, petchstein, and porcelain-jasper, in Bohemia; barytes in many parts; marbles, gypsum, and alabaster, in Bohemia; alum near Töplitz; rock-salt and Glauber salts in various parts; and abundance of the earths calculated for making earthenware, from the coarsest description to the finest porcelain. Fossil coal is found in many districts, and much of it is consumed; but the cheapness of wood, and the prejudices of the people against the use of it in their houses, has operated to prevent the mines from being completely explored or worked to anything approaching the extent of which they are capable. Gold is procured, though in very small quantities, by washing, in Saltzburg, in Bohemia, in the Rammelsberg, and. in Silesia. Silver and cinnabar are raised from the mines of the Erzgebirge in Saxony. Iron, copper, tin, lead, calamine, bismuth, cobalt, nickel, titanium, arsenic, and almost every other mineral, is more or less raised from the mines. The abundance of mineral substances everywhere scattered, and which it would be difficult to enumerate, have promoted the study of mineralogy, and given birth to the school of Freyburg, whence, under the direction of Werner, the mineralogical knowledge of the earth has been widely extended.

The annual supply from the mines of Germany is as follows:
[table]
[table]

The population of Germany has been vastly increased within the period which has passed since the conclusion of the revolutionary year. By the several censuses furnished by the respective states to the congress of Vienna, it appeared that the whole number of the inhabitants was 30,355,069, which in sixteen years has increased to 36,491,019, as is thus seen.
[table]

The inhabitants are of two original races; the ancient Germans and the Sclavonians. The former are divided into High and Low Germans, speaking a language somewhat different, but possessing great similarity in habits, characters, and dispositions. The Low German, or, as it is [7:10:486]called, Platt Deutsche, prevails among all the people in Lower Saxony, Westphalia, Holstein, Mecklenburg, Brandenburg, and Pomerania; but as the service in the churches, and the instruction in the schools, is in High German, all even of the peasantry understand that language, though they prefer their own dialect. In the southern parts, where only High German is spoken, the peasantry use a patois which is scarcely more intelligible to those unaccustomed to it than the Platt Deutsche. The descendants of the Sclavonians reside all to the eastward of the Elbe. They retain their original language, with a great mixture of German words; and they are far behind their neighbours in cultivation, but are an industrious and patient people. They form nearly one sixth of the inhabitants. In the south are same few of Italian origin; and colonies of French, originally Protestant refugees, are established in many places, where they retain a connection with each other, founded upon privileges granted at the time of their emigration. But all these scarcely amount to more than 250,000. The Jews are 248,749 souls; of whom 83,077 are in Austria, 57,353 in Prussia, 22,000 in Bavaria, 8319 in Wurtemberg, 8000 in Hanover, 8300 in Hesse-Darmstadt, 15,079 in Hesse-Cassel, 14,378 in Holstein, 16,000 in the free cities, and the remainder are scattered over the other states.

By the terms of the confederation, the three Christian sects, Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed, are on an equal footing in all the states of the union, and the religious profession of the princes has very little influence upon that of the subjects. The Catholics are the great majority in Austria, Bavaria, Baden, and Luxembourg, and form a numerous body in Prussia, Wurtemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Hesse-Cassel, and Hanover, amounting in all to 21,000,000 individuals. The Protestants of the two confessions have approached each other so nearly as to form almost but one church, and in many parts they are amalgamated together. Their whole number is about 14,000,000. The smaller Christian sects, Menonites, Hussites, Moravians, and a few of the Greek church, are not together more in number than the Jews, who, as before stated, do not exceed 250,000.

The knowledge of the German people probably exceeds that of every other. They have men of eminence in every department of literature, and can enumerate those who have made discoveries or improvements in every branch of science. It is not, however, so much from the merits of their eminent men, great and useful as they have been, as from the general diffusion of knowledge, that the character of the nation must be estimated. Its literature is not the work of its princes and nobles, but arises from the general taste for reading and accumulating knowledge which so extensively prevails, and which descends lower in the scale of society than in almost any other country of the civilized world. Although for two hundred years literature has prevailed much in Germany, it was only about the middle of the last century that, by the poets and critics, the language became polished, without diminishing its force, and was purified from many of those vulgarisms which had disgusted the English, French, and Italian literati. The learned men had more sedulously studied the ancient languages of Greece and Rome than the improvement of their own; but, in the middle of the last century, a race of authors appeared, with whom arose the commencement of the golden age of literature. Gotsched, Lessing, Adelung, and Campe, were amongst the first who imparted to their countrymen the knowledge of the powers and of the beauty of their native tongue. Poetry soon lent its aid, and furthered what the prose writers had begun; it broke forth suddenly as from a dark cloud, and threw a radiance on almost every subject which, in any age or country, the muse has ever attempted. With Haller, Gellert, and Hagedorn, began that chain of poetical writers which has continued to be extended to the present day. The poetical epistles of Michaelis, Ebert, Gotter, and Jacobi, will ever be read with delight. In descriptive poetry Von Kleist, Thümmel, and Wolfgang, have been distinguished; but especially Goethe, whose name is known in every corner of Europe. In satire, Rabener, Musaeus, Lichtenberg, and Fulk, excelled; in elegy, Holtz, Bürger, Weisse, Schmidt, and Herder; in fables, Gellert, Lessing, Willamow, and Pfeffel; in poetic tales, Wieland, Blumauer, Rost, and Nicoay. The name of K lopstock will ever be reverenced by those who venerate heroic or religious poetry. The lyric poems of Schiller, of the two Schlegels, of Bos, and Ramler, are beautiful specimens of the powers of the German language. Amongst the most eminent of the poets of Germany the name of Goethe cannot be passed over without some mention being made beyond the bare announcement. He has been, during a long life recently closed, the wonder and the delight of all who can understand his language. His works embrace every species of poetry, and are all marked with originality, force, pathos, and nature. He appeared with wonderful applause as a writer, first in 1773, and continued to interest, amuse, and instruct his country during more than fifty years, retaining to the last his powers of critical reflection and of accurate and spirited composition. The theatrical productions have kept pace with the other species of poetical composition. In tragedy, Schiller, Goethe, Lessing, Collen, and Grillparzer, have distinguished themselves; whilst lfland, Kotzebue, Brand, Grossman, Schroeder, and a host of other writers, have appeared in comedy.

German writers of prose have been neither fewer nor less able, though their names have not been so far extended in other countries as those of the poets and theatrical authors. In religious compositions, Mosheim, Sack, Jerusalem, Spalding, Zollikofer, and Teller, are destined to futurity, after having delighted and edified the existing generation. In epistolary writing, few in any language have exceeded Gellert, Winkelman, Abt, and Garve, whilst Mendelsohn has been unrivalled in his dialogues. The race of novel and romance writers has been too numerous to be recited; and the latter have displayed a power over the human passions and feelings which has scarcely been equalled by the writers of other nations. In didactic writings, those of Scheibart, Lessing, Winkelman, Iselin, Sonnenfels, Moser, Zimmerman, Eberhard, Bötticher, and Forster, have displayed great talent; and on subjects of education, Basedow, Campe, Trapp, Salzman, and Pestalozzi, have discovered vast powers of mind directed to one of the most important subjects.

In classical literature the Germans have thoroughly imbibed the spirit of the ages when Greece and Rome were at the highest pinnacle of literary glory. The names of Ernesti, Heyne, Gesner, Camerarius, Fabri, Wyttenbach, Wolf, and Scheller, are familiar to the Latin scholars of every country; as are those of Michaelis, Hottinger, Von der Hardt, Eichorn, Griesbach, and Paulus, to the Greek student; but perhaps, of all the classical scholars of Europe, none have equalled the stupendous learning of the elder Schweighaeuser, whose edition of Herodotus, with his lexico, and his extracts from Polybius, Athenaeus, Arrian, Simplicius, Epictetus, and others, have rendered him an object of admiration to the learned of every country.

The Germans have been ever distinguished for that diligence and patience in examination which are the great requisites in geographical and statistical authors. None in any country has exceeded Busching, and many living authors are now following his steps with equal success.

The Germans claim the honour of having been the revivers[7:10:487] of the Grecian mathematics, and the glory of having ascertained, by their countryman Copernicus, the true system of astronomy. Kepler is considered as the father of dioptrics, Tscħernhausen the inventor of burning glasses, Leibnitz the discoverer of the differential calculus, and Lieberkuhn the greatest improver of the solar microscope. Euler was distinguished by his powers of analysis; and Kepler, Mayer, Herschel, Bode, Von Zach, and 01- bers, by their skill in astronomy. Metaphysics engaged the close attention of Wolf, Leibnitz, Kant, and their scholars, Fichte, Schelling, and Plainer.

Although in natural history Germany has produced neither a Linnaeus nor a Buffon, yet Blumenbach, Zimmerman, Pallas, and Fabricius in zoology; Haller, Gleiditsch, Hofman, and Sprengel in botany; and Werner in mineralogy, would not be unfit associates of those great names.

In natural philosophy the Germans claim for Guerike the discovery of the air-pump; for Fahrenheit the thermometer; and for Hausen the invention, and for Marun the perfecting, of electrical machines; and they are proud to reckon amongst their chemists the names of Stahl, Hofman, Margrof, Born, Klaproth, and Humboldt. In medicine, besides Paracelsus and Stahl, they boast with great reason of Hofman, Tissot, Haller, Unzer, and Huefland, with many others of great though inferior name.

In jurisprudence the Germans long took the lead in Europe; and in theology Luther and Melancthon have, by the translation of the sacred books, and by their writings, produced a mighty change through all the most enlightened nations of Europe.

It is, however, somewhat singular, that in a country of so much learning and such research, in which antiquities have been sedulously studied, where the numismatic collections are so numerous, and where ancient documents are so carefully preserved, scarcely any historian has appeared who deserves a higher name than that of a chronicler.

The fine arts have been cultivated, especially music, with much success. No nation has produced more celebrated composers than Gluch, Handel, Haydn, Bach, and, above all, perhaps, Mozart. Statuary has been practised more by Italians in this country than by natives. Painters have risen to no very great excellence, with the exception of Albert Durer, Kranach, and Holbein; but to those of a more recent date must be added Mengs, and, in our own time, Angelica Kaufman, Hackert, and one or two others.

The circulation of books, produced from the pens of ten thousand writers, is facilitated by the two fairs of Leipsic, to which the publishers from all parts of Germany resort with the new works they have printed at their own residences. This general rendezvous becomes the focus of literary information. The publications are made known, their respective merits are discussed, and the different booksellers exchange with each other the productions of their respective provinces, which are thus spread over the extensive country in which the language is used with great regularity, and at a very trifling expense in advertising.

One evil is much complained of, namely, the want of protection for literary property; which arises from the great number of sovereigns in whose dominions the same language is spoken. The best productions of the north are frequently pirated in the south. The king of Saxony has indeed prohibited the circulation of pirated editions at Leipsic during the fairs; but that is found insufficient to protect authors whose productions combine excellence with popularity. The average number of works published of late years at Leipsic has been about six thousand, amounting to about ten thousand volumes, which probably is more than all the other presses of Europe deliver. The press in Germany is nearly free; for though in some states there is a previous censorship, yet it is conducted on liberal principles, and is seldom exercised except on small political works which display more heat than light, or on the class of periodical publications of less than twelve sheets.

No other part of Europe enjoys advantages for education equal to Germany, especially the northern parts of it. The parochial schools are so universal, that none but the wilfully ignorant, or those of imperfect faculties, can be strangers to reading, writing, and the first rules of arithmetic. The schools for classical instruction, denominated Gymnasiums, Pedagogiums, and Lyceums, are found in almost every large town, and dispense learning at a very cheap rate. The universities are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently endowed to provide instruction in the higher branches of knowledge upon terms nearly if not altogether gratuitous. .

The number of students in 1831, communibus annis, at each of the universities, is as under :—
[table]

Besides these universities, there are in almost all the capitals of every state institutions for instructing pupils in the various learning of the medical, clerical, legal, and military professions, and of agriculture, mining, and the management of forest lands. There are also abundance of learned societies spread over the whole of Germany, many of which have, in the course of years, been enabled to assemble such large collections of natural and artificial curiosities as afford valuable assistance to those engaged in the pursuit of knowledge.

The public libraries collected in the different cities far exceed any thing that has been known in other countries. These valuable collections are managed with the greatest liberality; all of them are open for inspection and perusal at all proper seasons; and from most of them the readers may be supplied at their own residences. They thus become active and efficient fountains of knowledge. It would be tiresome to give a list which should comprehend all those the number of volumes in which exceed 10,000; but we shall present one of those whose volumes are not less than 50,000: viz. Vienna, 550,000 volumes, including manuscripts and local and temporary works; Munich, 400,000 volumes in the royal central library; Göttingen, 280,000 volumes, including some thousand valuable manuscripts; Dresden, 250,000 printed volumes, and 104,000 manuscripts and smaller works; Wolfenbuttel, 190,000 printed volumes, 44,000 manuscripts, and 6000 Bibles; [7:10:488]Stutgardt, 170,000 volumes, besides 12,000 Bibles of all languages and editions; Berlin,300,000volumes, in seven public libraries; Weimar, 110,000 volumes, and 20,000 smaller works; Prague, 110,000 volumes; Frankfort, 100,000 volumes, in several public libraries; Hamburg and Breslau have 100,000 each in their public libraries; Mentz, 90,000; Darmstadt, 85,000; Cassel, 70,000; Gratz, 70,000; Gotha, 60,000; Marburg, 55,000; Jena, 50,000. The number of books in all Germany, in such libraries and other institutions as are open to the public, has been estimated at 5,000,000 volumes.

The collections of pictures and of antiquities correspond in extent and in excellence to the public libraries. The gallery of Dresden, now that the pictures which were plundered by France have been sent back from the Louvre to the places whence they had been taken, is the first in Europe. The collections at Berlin, Brunswick, Cassel, and Augsburg, are also very fine; and many private assemblages of pictures, particularly those of the Princes Liechtenstein, Kaunitz, Esterhazy, and Count Schonbrun, are of the very first class. The antique cabinets of Dresden, Munich, and Cassel, are filled with curiosities from remote ages and distant nations; and the cabinets of natural history at Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Cassel, Manheim, Jena, Munich, and Gotha, are most richly filled.

The greater part of the land in Germany is held by those ancient feudal tenures which formerly prevailed in every part of Europe. The possessors of the soil, of whom in every state the sovereign is by far the greatest, have under them a species of customary tenants called subjects (Unterthaner), who have the cultivation of common fields divided into small portions, without the intervention of fences. As soon as the corn is removed from the field, the lord has the right of pasture; and owing to these circumstances it is impossible to deviate from an ancient practice, by which the different portions of the common land must be devoted to particular kinds of crops at specific periods. The rotation almost universally prescribed, and known by the name of drey feld landwirthìhafì, consists of a fallow, succeeded by two crops of grain. The fallow, however, generally bears a crop, which is usually either flax, peas, or, very commonly of late, potatoes; in consequence of a crop on the fallow, the land is seldom płoperly cleaned of weeds. To this fallow crop generally succeeds winter corn, either wheat or rye; but, in the north, the proportion of the latter to the former is as four to one, and in many parts, especially in Pomerania, ten to one. In the southern states, the two kinds of grain are nearly equally cultivated. To the winter corn succeeds barley or oats, as the land is better adapted for the one or the other, or as may have been settled between the ancestors of the present lords and their tenants in remote periods. By this mode of cultivation, the earth yields but a small increase. Tħe tenants can keep but little live stock, and therefore make but little manure. The live stock they do keep is generally fed throughout the winter with straw, and the addition recently of potatoes, with a small portion of corn; and what dung they do produce is consequently of a very weak quality. These tenants are commonly holders of small portions of land, which, in many instances, is necessarily divided at their decease among all their children; and thus the evil of the cottage system of small farms is clearly experienced. The villages are crowded with little proprietors, who have not either the conventional or the pecuniary power to improve the soil, who live in a state inferior to labourers, and who, from the smallness of their farms, can only obtain subsistence by living on the cheapest diet, which of late, as in Ireland, is principally potatoes. Upon this system, the number of husbandmen increases with considerable rapidity; they form soldiers, and when called out by the military conscriptions of their princes, are placed in a better situation than when living on their farms.

In this condition of the community, the only land which can be well cuirivated is the small portion of demesne which is in the hands of the lords, who, from their stock of cattle, could make manure to dress and improve the soil. These demesne lands are, however, though cultivated for the lords, ploughed by the tenants, who are bound by their tenures to do certain stipulated work for their superiors. The consequence of this is, that the work is badly performed, and at such seasons as best suits the tenant’s own labour. The demesnes, too, fee) the want of capital; for the lords have little besides their estates and the cattle upon them, and these being too generally left to the care of managers, who are less thrifty than as proprietors they would be, suffer considerably from that circumstance.

The foregoing sketch is a description of the practice on the far greater portion of the land in Germany; and, in consequence of it, the soil, though superior in original fecundity to the greater part of England, is gradually deteriorating, and does not at present yield more than five eighths of what we raise upon the same quantity of land. From the poorer classes eating nothing but rye or potatoes, and from having three fourths of its population employed in agriculture, Germany is enabled to export corn in most years; but when an unpropitious season occurs the distress is dreadful, and is increased by the smallness of the different states, and the power being restricted of circulating grain freely from one to another; an evil which was severely felt and lamentably deplored in the calamitous year 1817.

The land of Germany produces but little beyond the absolute and indispensable wants of its inhabitants, except in wine, flax, and wool. The culture of the vine is much less attended to than in France; and wine is the production of but a very small portion when compared with the whole extent of the country, whereas in France almost every part yields it. The quantity made in Germany is not calculated at more than about one sixth of what France supplies; the whole is computed to be nearly two million pipes of one hundred gallons each; but a very small part of this finds its way to foreign countries.

The flax frequently forming, as before stated, the fallow crop, is important from the employment it affords, during the long and cold nights of their severe winter, to the female members of the peasants’ families, and from the trade it creates in the export of its productions in the form of yarn or of linen cloth.

Wool is generally the property of the lord, and its annual clip is frequently the principal revenue derived from extensive possessions. This has induced many to pay great attention to the improvement of the wool, and much of it, especially from Saxony, is superior to any that the Merino flocks of Spain afford. It is within the few years which have elapsed since the expulsion of the French, that the great extension of the breed of fine-woolled sheep has taken place. The implements of husbandry are in a very imperfect state, and as much so from want of information as from want of capital in Germany. The ploughs are generally small, light, and without a due curvature in the mould-board. The harrows are frequently of wood. That useful implement the roller is rarely seen; the waggons and carts are badly constructed, and the harness of all consists either of ropes or twisted straw.

There are exceptions to these observations on the agriculture of Germany, but they are too few to merit any particular notice.

Germany is generally a manufacturing country, and can supply itself with by far the greater part of all the commodities which it needs. The manufacturers of that country[7:10:489] are not placed in different district«, but in the same towns; and in almost every town of a moderate population, woollen, linen, cotton, silk, and iron wares are made. Thus their establishments are mostly upon a small scale, and they cannot avail themselves of those minute divisions of labour which are essential to the perfecting and to the cheapness of the goods. Linens are the most valuable article, and are made, from the coarse ones of Westphalia, which are used for negro clothing, to the finest shirting and table linen of Silesia and Saxony, and of all the intermediate qualities. Woollens of all kinds are made, and are sufficient for the consumption, so that those of England and France are scarcely needed; nor do the Germans allow that any foreign fine linen cloth is equal, either in quality or price, to those manufactured in Saxony, Silesia, and the newly acquired Prussian provinces on the Rhine, from wool of native growth. The cassimeres and Vigo-nia cloths, in that last-mentioned district in the towns of Eupen, Machren, and Aachen, are preferred to any which are brought from other countries. The fabrics of cotton had much increased during the continental system of exclusion, and had arrived at a considerable degree of perfection; but the return of tranquillity has checked the progress of aD, and annihilated many. The most considerable districts for these kinds of goods are the kingdom of Saxony, the Prussian provinces of Juliers, Berg, and Cleves, and on the banks of the Ens, in the Austrian dominions. The silk manufactures have never been considerable; some goods of the kind are made in many of the cities, but the principal establishments are in Vienna, at Roveredo in the Tyrol, at Creveldt, at Cologne, and at Berlin. Leather, iron, steel, and the wares prepared from them, are made at home. Porcelain and common earthenware are well made, and the two great royal manufactories of the first at Berlin and Dresden equal any from Sèvre, from Worcester, or Etruria. The glassware of Bohemia, though of a very bad quality, is universally diffused, not only throughout Germany, but in most other parts of the world. Paper is a considerable article amongst the German manufactories. That for printing is coarse, and of a bad colour, and the writing paper is very imperfectly made. There are 506 mills, which deliver annually about 60,000 bales, but none of it goes to other countries. Chemical preparations are made upon an extensive scale, and comprehend alum, vitriol, smalts, white lead, Prussian blue, sal ammoniac, and verdigris. Salt and sugar are refined for home consumption. Tobacco, snuff, wax, and oils from plants, are also supplied from domestic manufactories. The quantity of beer furnished by the breweries in every town in the north is very great, and the distilleries of ardent spirits from grain form a most extensive manufactory; vinegar is mostly prepared from grapes in those districts where they do not ripen sufficiently to be made into wine. The minuter articles, such as musical, mathematical, surgical, and optical instruments, with watches and clocks, are well and cheaply made. Wooden toys and plaited straw are important objects of employment to many of the inhabitants. Most of the fabrics of Germany are fettered by the laws of the guilds, or corporations, to which the masters are obliged to belong; and this acts as an impediment to their arriving at a high degree of perfection.

The commerce of Germany, conducted by means of shipping, centres principally in the Prussian ports, or in the free cities, and may be best treated of under each of them. The commerce with France, Italy, Turkey, Poland, and Russia, is by no means great. The articles produced on the borders of each are too similar to cause a necessity for an interchange; and the heavier articles, which are produced ata distance from the respective boundaries, will, in few instances, bear the expense of land carriage. The trade which is purely internal, or amongst the different states, is much less than might be expected, and much less than it would be if there existed less of a monopolizing spirit among the cities, and less of jealousy among the several sovereigns. The greater part of the internal trade consists in the sale of wines, and of foreign colonial produce, which the capitalists in the cities collect and sell in smaller quantities to the shops in the provincial towns.

As the other independent states of Germany are separately described in this work, and Baden only referred to Germany, in the alphabetical order, the following is a more especial notice of it.

It is a grand duchy, is bounded on the north-east by Bavaria, on the east by Wurtemberg and Hohenzollern, on the south-east by the lake of Constance, on the south by Switzerland, and on the west and north-west by France. It extends over 6008 square miles, and has been recently divided into four circles, thus:
[table]

The face of the country is peculiarly striking. On the western side a most fertile stripe of land is bounded by the river Rhine, from which rises that mass of mountains oŋ the east known as the Black Forest, one of the peaks of which is of the height of 4600 feet. In the valleys the husbandry is good and productive, and the crops of hemp, madder, tobacco, poppies, beans, and potatoes, are most luxuriant. Even in the mountainous parts, rye, wheat, and oats are extensively cultivated, but much of the surface is covered with woods. A considerable extent of pasture land supplies the duchy with good butter, meal, and some cheese. The vineyards are extensive, occupying one tenth of the country, and producing various kinds of excellent wine; and the gardens and orchards supply abundance of fruits of the best description, and especially almonds, chestnuts, and walnuts, at very cheap rates. Though not more than half the land is cultivated, the supply of every agricultural product is more than sufficient for the inhabitants.

The mining concerns are numerous but not large, and yield commonly 5000 ounces of silver, 400 quintals of copper, 2000 of lead, 320 of cobalt, and iron to the extent of İOŎO tons. The mineral springs are numerous, but those of the greatest celebrity in the duchy of Baden are almost exclusively resorted to by visitors for health or pleasure.

Baden is a manufacturing country for many articles, the value of which arises almost wholly from the labour employed in their preparation. In some years 110,000 wooden clocks and 50,000 dozen of wooden spoons are made. These are only a part of the numerous smaller kinds of ware which the ingenuity of the inhabitants prepares. Besides these, there are manufactures of linen and woollen goods produced, but of the coarser sorts.

The reigning house has risen to its present dignity and consideration since the peace ofLunevillein 1801, when its territory extended only over 1554 square miles, inhabited by 210,000 people. By the treaty then made, the dominions were nearly doubled, and further augmen ted by the treaty of [7:10:490]Presburg in 1803; and by some smaller additions at subsequent periods, it has attained its present extent. A constitution has been given by the prince, by which an upper and a lower house of legislators is established. The revenues amount to about L.1,000,000 annually; and the expenditure, including a sinking fund for the discharge of the public debt, is about equal to it. Since the general peace, the debt has been gradually diminished, from L.2,000,000 to its present amount, which in 1832 was L. 1,300,000. The regular army consists of 8000 infantry, 1500 cavalry, and 850 artillery. The contingent to the German confederation is fixed at 10,000 men. The three religions arc equally established, but the prince adheres to the Lutheran church. The Catholics are the most numerous body, being about 800,000. The Lutherans and Calvinists have united since 1821, and amount to 365,000; and there are nearly 20,000 Jews. There are two universities, that of Heidelburg for the Protestants, the oldest in Germany, and that at Freyburg for the Catholics. The principal cities and their population are as follows:
[table]