514 The Hanse Towns. [MAY, 



were all unmarried, and they were prohibited from receiving the visits of 

 any female. To satisfy the governors of the fortitude of their younger 

 members under this cloistral discipline, all aspirants must undergo an 

 ordeal scarcely less severe than that of old appointed for criminals. The 

 three species of torture were the trial by smoke, by water, and by the 

 scourge. Those were so severe, that it was not unusual to see them 

 die under the operation. Still the certainty of making wealth in time, 

 the eagerness of youth, and perhaps even the mystery of the life, attracted 

 such crowds of young men from all parts of the Continent, that it was 

 constantly found necessary to increase the difficulties of admission by 

 still more barbarous penalties. This ordeal, which was called The Games, 

 annually attracted an immense concourse of spectators to Bergen. The 

 severities of the exhibition were followed by a carousal, dances, masque- 

 rades, feasts and revellings of all extravagant kinds. The factory was 

 mad, till the Carnival was over. Then the gates were shut, silence pre- 

 vailed, every man was bent over his ledger, and the grimness of a den 

 of Carthusians succeeded to the revelry of a German hostel. The close 

 of the ceremony was announced by the appearance of a jester or fool, 

 who proclaimed, " Long life to the Games/' and proposed a general 

 health to the prosperity, the honour, and the trade of the Hanseatic 

 factory. 



The second factory but the most productive in point of trade, was that 

 of Bruges. The early progress of the Flemings in the possession of 

 public rights, had long made them eminent in every art cultivated by the 

 free labour of man. While France and Germany were turned into deserts 

 by the perpetual quarrels of their masters, and while the people, exposed 

 to the extortions of all, lost the spirit of economy and industry for who 

 will toil for the robber and the oppressor ? the Fleming, secure that 

 what he earned would be his own, and fearless of power while he could 

 take shelter under the wing of a constitution, had turned his country 

 into a garden, and built manufactories like citadels, and houses like 

 palaces. 



The wool-trade of Europe, like all other trades, had naturally devolved 

 into the hands which could best pay for it ; and the beauty of the Flemish 

 stuffs, the richness of their dyes, and peculiarly the splendour of their 

 tapestries, which to the eyes of the half savage German and Russian 

 must have looked scarcely less than miraculous, commanded the wealth 

 of Europe. A Flemish tapestry was a royal treasure, and no sovereign 

 hesitated to strip his exchequer for so singular, and certainly so beautiful 

 an evidence of the skill of man. The Hanseatics filled their depot at 

 Bruges with the produce of the extreme north, timber, iron, hemp, 

 canvas, cloth, and especially wax, which had an extraordinary sale, at 

 a period when the Continent was overwhelmed with churches and 

 cathedrals, when perpetual lights were burning in them all, and when 

 sins were atoned in proportion to the thickness of the sinner's candle. 



Another of their great factories was established in the heart of Russia. 

 It must seem strange to us, that in the only country of Europe which now 

 exhibits the model of the most unrelieved despotism, one of the earliest 

 and most powerful republics existed, so far back as the eleventh century. 

 This was one of the many miracles of commerce. The situation of Novo- 

 rogod, on the Wolchof river, and at the head of one of the great inland 

 waters of Russia, directed its attention to trade, on the first cessation of 

 the Tartar wars. From a place of refuge for fishermen, or the few 



