446 GERMANY. 



In chemistry and in medicine, the merit of the Germans is very 

 conspicuous ; and Reimaraus, Zimmermann, Abt, Kasstner, Segner, 

 Lambert, Mayer, Kruger, and Sulger, have acquired fame by their 

 philosophical writings. Busching is an excellent geographical wri- 

 ter ; and Mascoe, Bunau, Putter, Gatterer, Gebaur, and Schmidt, 

 have excelled in historical works. But it cannot be denied that the 

 Germans, in their romances, are a century behind us. Most of their 

 publications of this kind are imitations of ours, or else very dry and 

 uninteresting ; which perhaps is owing to education, to false deli- 

 cacy, or to a certain taste of knight errantry which is still predomi- 

 nant among some of their novel writers. 



In works relating to antiquity, and the arts known among the 

 ancients, the names of Winckelman, Klog, and Lessing, are familiar 

 with those who are skilled in this branch of literature. In ecclesias- 

 tical, philosophical and literary history, the names of Albertus Fabri- 

 cius, Mosheim, Semler, and Brucker, are well known among us. 

 Raphelius, Michaelis, and Walch, are famous in sacred literature. 

 Cellarius, Burman, Taubman, Reiske, Ernesti, Reimarus, Haver- 

 camp, and Heyne, have published some of the best editions of Greek 

 and Latin classics. 



It is an unfavourable circumstance for German literature, that the 

 French language should be so fashionable in the German courts instead 

 of the German, and that so many of their princes should give it so 

 decided a preference. Frederic II, king of Prussia, had ordered the 

 Philosophical Transactions of his royal society at Berlin, from the 

 beginning of its institution, to be published in the French tongue ; 

 by which, some of the Germans think his majesty cast a very unde- 

 served reproach upon his native language. 



With respect to the fine arts, the Germans have acquitted them- 

 selves very well. Germany has produced some good painters, archi- 

 tects, sculptors, and engravers. They even pretend to have been the 

 first inventors of engraving, etching, and mezzotinto. Printing, if 

 first invented in Holland, was soon after greatly improved in Ger- 

 many. The Germans are generally allowed to have been the first 

 inventors of great guns, as also of gunpowder, in Europe, about the 

 year 1320. Germany has likewise produced some excellent musi- 

 cians ; Handel, Bach, Hasse, and Haydn, of whom Handel stands at 

 the head, having arrived at the sublime of music. 



Universities. ...There are at present in Germany thirty-one univer- 

 sities, of which fourteen, viz. those of Leipsic, Rostock, Greifswalde, 

 Wittenberg, Tubingen, Iena, Helmstadt, Giessen, Rinteln, Altorf, 

 Kiel, Halle, Goettingen, and Erlangen, are Lutheran ; three, viz. 

 Frankfort on the Oder, Marburg, and Duisburg, of the reformed or 

 Calvinistic religion ; twelve, viz. Prague, Vienna, Wurzburg, Frey- 

 burg, Landshut, Dillingen, Ollmutz, Gratz, Paderborn, Salzburg, 

 Fulda, and Bamberg, catholic ; and two, Heidelberg and Erfurt, mix- 

 ed, or both catholic and protestant. There are also a number of 

 colleges, gymnasia, pedagogies, and Latin schools. There are also 

 many academies and societies for promoting the study of natural 

 philosophy, the belles lettres, antiquities, painting, sculpture, archi- 

 tecture, &c. as the Imperial Leopoldine Academy of the Naturae 

 Curiosi : the Academy of Sciences at Vienna, at Berlin, at Goet- 

 tingen, at Erfurt, at Leipsic, at Duisburg, at Giesen, and at Ham- 

 burg. At Dresden and"Nuremberg are academies for painting : at 

 Berlin a royal military academy ; and at Augsburg is the Imperial 



