444 GERMANY. 



elements of bread and wine, is supposed to be taken in the sacrament) 

 to be imperfect. Calvinism,* therefore, or the religion of Geneva 

 (as now practised in the church of Scotland) was introduced into 

 Germany, and is the religion professed in the territories of the king 

 of Prussia, the landgrave of Hesse, and some other princes, who 

 maintain a parity ot orders in the church. Some even assert, that the 

 numbers of protestants and papists in the empire are now almost equal. 

 Germany, particularly Moravia and the Palatinate, as also Bohemia, is 

 overrun with sectaries of all kinds ; and Jews abound in the empire. 

 At present, the modes of worship and forms of church government 

 are, by the protestant German princes, considered in a civil rather than 

 a religious light. 



The elector archchancellor (the late elector and archbishop of 

 MeDtz) is primate and metropolitan of all Germany ; and the see of 

 Mentz has been transferred to Ratisbon. Germany formerly contain- 

 ed six archbishoprics and thirty-eight bishoprics. 



Literature. ..No country has produced a greater variety of authors 

 than Germany, and there is no where a more genei'al taste for read- 

 ing, especially in the protestant countries. Printing is encouraged 

 to a fault ; almost every man of letters is an author : they multiply 

 books without number in every department of literature ; and thou- 

 sands of theses and disputations are annually published ; for no man 

 can be a graduate in their universities who has not published one 

 disputation at least. 



Many of the Germans have greatly distinguished themselves in 

 various branches of learning and science. They have written largely 

 upon the Roman and canon laws. Stahl, Van Swieten, Stork, Hoff- 

 man and lialler, have contributed greatly to the improvement of 

 physic ; Ruvinus and Dillenius, of botany ; Heister, of anatomy and 

 surgery : and Neumann, Zimmermann, Pott, and Margraff of chemis- 

 try. In astronomy, Kepler deservedly obtained a great reputation ; 

 and Puffendorf is one of the first writers on the law of nature and 

 nations, and has also merit as an historian. But at the end of the 

 last century, and the beginning of the present, Germany, by her 

 divines, and by her religious sects, was so much involved in disputes 

 about systematic theology, that few comparatively paid any attention 

 to other parts of learning or to polite literature. The language also, 

 and the style of writing in German books, which at the time of the 

 Reformation was pure and original, became ridiculous, by a continual 

 intermixture of Latin and French words; which, though they were 

 not understood by the people in general, were thought to give an air 

 of superiority to the writers, and therefore much affected : for an 

 opinion prevailed among the learned in Germany, and many have not 

 yet divested themselves of it, that compiling huge volumes, and lard- 

 ing them with numberless quotations from all sorts of authors, and 

 from all languages, was the true test of great erudition. Their pro- 

 ductions, therefore, became heavy and pedantic, and were in conse- 

 quence, disregarded by other nations. 



It was about the year 1730 that the prospects of literature in Ger- 



* John Calvin was born in the province of Picardy, in the north of France, anno 

 1506. Being obliged to fly from that kingdom, he settled at Geneva, in 1539, 

 where he established a new form of church discipline, which was soon after 

 embraced by several nations and states, who are now denominated Presbyterians, 

 and, from their doctrinal articles, Calvinists. He died at Geneva, in the year 1564; 

 and his writings make nine volumes in folio. 



