166 Nations lately become Literary, [Ch. XXVI. 



bitants are still sunk in a degree of ignorance and 

 barbarism, which the exertions of another cen- 

 tury, and of another succession of enterprising 

 sovereigns, Avill perhaps not be more thian suffi- 

 cient to remove. 



SECTION II. 



GERMANY. 



It can scarcely be said, with strict propriety, 

 that Germany has lately become literary; fof 

 iong before the period under consideration, there 

 was much, both of literature and of science, in 

 that empire. Those who have any acquaintance 

 with the great contributors to human knowledge, 

 wiiose names adorn the history of Europe, in the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, need not be 

 informed, that of this number Germany may 

 claim a very respectable portion. But the culti- 

 vation of the German language ; the publication 

 of dignified and popular works in that language ; 

 and especially the commencement of a just taste 

 in German literature^ may all, Avith truth, be 

 ascribed to the eighteenth century. 



At. the beginning of this period, all works of 

 importance in Germany were written in the Latin 

 tongue : and it seemed then to be a prevalent 

 opinion among the Jiterati of that country, that 

 the compilation of huge folios, interspersed with 

 innumerable quotations from writers in all known 

 languages, was the most unequivocal proof of 



