Sect. II.] Germany. 175 



It was observed in a former chapter, that no 

 Historical work, deserving of commendation for 

 its taste or elegance, had appeared in Germanr 

 prior to the period under review. Within the 

 latter half of this period, the works of Haber- 

 lin, Gebauer, Schmidt, Muller, Heinrich, Beck, 

 Meusel, Gatterer, Galletti, Ebeling, and Schiller, 

 afford very honourable monuments of German 

 talents. Of these the manner of Schiller appears 

 to be considered as the most easy, spirited^ 

 and elegant- But though the historians of that 

 country have made great progress, within a iev> 

 years past, in cultivating this species of compo- 

 sition, it is conceived that none of them have yet 

 reached the high rank of historical excellence 

 for which Robertson, Hume, and Gibbon, are so 

 generally celebrated. 



The Germans exceed all the rest of the v»orld 

 in the number and excellence of their Statistical 

 histories. The first work published under this 

 denomination, and in a scientific form, was about 

 the middle of the century, by professor Achen- 

 wall, of Gottingen, who is considered as the 

 father of Statistics. Since that time many others 

 have published works of a similar nature, but 

 of superior excellence. Among these Walch, 

 Reinhard, Bauman, Toze, Remer, Meusel, and 

 Sprengel, are entitled to particular notice- 

 But there is no species of composition v/ith re- 

 spect to which a greater improvement has been 

 made in Germany, during the last age, than in 

 that of Fictitious History. The only Romances 

 or Novels which had appeared in that country, at 

 the beginning of the century, were wretched 



