465 
GERMAN Y. 
dreary life, is of a con/litution that fupports, and even 
feeins to require, the niofl; intenfe cold. He is foiriid 
on the rocks of Spitzbergen, witliin ten degrees of the 
pole ; he (ecms to deliglit in the fnows of Lajdand and 
Siberia; but at prefent he cannot fubfilb, much let's 
multiply, in any country to the fouth of the Baltic. 
\ et In tile time of Caefar, the rein-deer, as well as the 
elk, and the wild bull, vvas.a native of the Mercynian 
iorell, which then overfliadowed a great part of Ger¬ 
many and Poland. Modern improvements, however, 
fufficiently explain the caufes of tlie diminution of the 
cold. 1 hel'e immenfe woods have been gradually 
cleared, which intercepted from the earth the rays of 
the fun. TJic moralfes have been drained, and, in pro¬ 
portion as the foil has been cultivated, the climate has 
become more genial, and the air more temperate. Ca¬ 
nada, at this day, is an exadt pitture of ancient Ger¬ 
many. Although fituated in the fame parallel with 
the (inefl provinces of France and England, that coun¬ 
try dill experiences the mod rigorous cold. The rein¬ 
deer are very numerous, the ground is covered with 
deep and lading Inow, and the great river of St. Law¬ 
rence is regularly frozen, in a feafon when the waters 
ol the Seine and the Thames are ufually free from ice. 
It is difficult toalcertain, though eafy to exaggerate, 
the influence of the fevere climate of ancient Germany 
over the minds and bodies of the natives. Many wri¬ 
ters have luppofed, and fome have allowed, though, as 
it fliould feem, without any adequate proof, that the ri¬ 
gorous cold ot the north was favourable to long life 
and generative vigour; that the women were more 
fruittul, and the human fpecies more prolific, than in 
warmer or more temperate climates. We may albert, 
with greater confidence, that the keen air of Germany 
formed the large and mafeuline limbs of the natives, 
who were, in general, of a more lofty daturc than the 
people ot the fouth, gave them a kind of drength bet¬ 
ter adapted to violent exertions than to patient labour, 
and inlpired them with conditutional bravery, which is 
the relult ot nerves and fpirits. The ieverity of a win¬ 
ter campaign, that chilled the courage of the Roman 
troops, was fcarcely felt by thefe hardy children of the 
north, who in their turn were unable to relid the fum- 
mer heats, and diflblved away in languor and licknefs 
under the beams of an Ittilian fun. 
There is not any where upon the globe, a large trail 
ot country, which has ever been dilcovered deditute of 
inhabitants, or wliole fird population can be fixed with 
any degree of hidorical certainty. And yet, as the mod 
philofophic minds can feldotn refrain from invedigaiing 
the infancy of great nations, our curiolity coiifumes it- 
felf in toilfome and difappointed ed'orts. When Taci¬ 
tus conlidered the purity of the German blood, and the 
forbidding afpeit of the country, he was difpofed to 
pronounce thofe barbarians indigena, or natives of tJie 
foil. We may allow with fafety, and perhaps with 
truth, that ancient Germany was not originally peopled 
by any foreign colonies already formed into a political 
lociety ; but that the name and nation received their 
exidence from the gradual union of fome wandeping la¬ 
vages of the Hercynian woods. To albert thofe lavages 
to have been the fpontaneous produllion of the earth 
which they inhabited, would be an inference condemned 
by religion, and unwarranted by reafon. 
An immenfe luperdructure of wild fable has however 
been erebted upon this doubtful and precarious founda¬ 
tion. '1 he leventeenth century abounded with anti¬ 
quarians of eafy faith, who, by the dim light of legends 
and traditions, of conjectures and etymologies, con¬ 
ducted the great grandchildren of Noah from the Tower 
of Babel to the extremities of the globe. Of thele 
credulous writers, one of the molt entertaining was 
Olaus Rudbeck, profelbor in the univerdty of IJpIal. 
Whatever is celebrated either in hidory or fable, this 
jealous critic alcribes to his own country. Fryjn Swe. 
VoL. VIII, No. J17. 
den, which formed fo confidcrable a part of tmeient 
Germ.any, the Greeks were laid to derive their alpha¬ 
betical characters, their adronomy, and their religion. 
Of that delightful region, (for (uch it appeared to the 
eyes ot a native,) the Atlantis of Plato, the country of 
the Hyperboreans, the gardens of the Helperides, the 
I'ortunate 1 Hands, and even the Elylian Fields, were 
but laint and imperfeCt tranferipts. A clime fo fa¬ 
voured by nature, could not long remain defert after 
the flood. The learned Rudbeck therefore allows tiie 
family ot Noah a few years to multiply from abotit 
eight to twenty thoufand perfons. Kc then difperfes 
them into fmall colonies to replenilh the earth, and to 
propagate the human fpecies. 'I'he Swedifh detach- 
ment, which, according to him, marciied under the 
command ot Afkenaz the fon of Gonier, the fon of 
Japhet, didinguilhed itfelf by a more than common 
diligence in the profeculion of this great work. This 
northern hive cad its fwarms over the greated part of 
Europe, Africa, and Aha ; and, (to life Rudbeck’s own 
metaphor,) “the blood circulated from the extremities 
to the heart.” 
But, unfortunately, all this laboured genealogy .of the 
Germans is annihilated by a lingle faCt, too well attefled 
to admit of doubt, and of too clecihve a nature to leave 
room tor reply. The Germans, in the age of Tacitus, 
were unacquainted with the ule of letters ; and the ufe 
of letters is the principal circumftance that diftinguifhes 
a civilized people from a race of lavages, incapable of 
knowledge or reflection. Without that artificial help, 
the human memory loon diffip>ates or corrupts the ideas 
intruded to her charge ; and thus the nobler faculties 
ot the human mind, no longer fupplied with models or 
with materials, gradually forget their powers ; the 
judgment becomes feeble and lethargic, the imagination 
languid and irregular. Fully to comprehend tills im¬ 
portant truth, let us but attempt, in an improved So¬ 
ciety, to calculate the immenfe dillance between ihe 
man of learning, and the pealant. The former, 
by reading and reflection, multiplies his own expe¬ 
rience, and lives even in didant ages and remote coun¬ 
tries; whild the latter, rooted to a lingle fpot, and con¬ 
fined to a few years of mere exidence, furpafi'es but' 
very little his fellow-labourer, the ox, in the exercife 
of his mental faculties. 'I he fame, and even a greater, 
did'erence will be found between nations than betw eeii 
individuals; and we may lately pronounce, that witli- 
out fome form of writing, no people has ever preferved 
the faithful annals of their hidory, ever made any pro- 
grefs in the abdraCt fciences, or ever pofTelfed, in any 
fenlible degree, the ufeful and elegant arts of human life. 
Of thefe arts, the ancient Germans were certainly def- 
titute. They palfed their lives in a date of ignorance 
and poverty, which it has pleafed fome declaimers to 
dignify with the appellation of virtuous fnnplicity. 
Nlodern Germany is laid to contain about two thoufand 
three hundred walled towns. In a much wider extent 
of country, the great Ptolemy could difeover no more 
than ninety places, which he called by the name of ci¬ 
ties; though, according fo modern ideas, they would 
but ill delerve that fplendid title. We can only lup- 
pofe them to have been rude fortifications, condructed, 
like thofe of the ancient Britons, in the lallnelfes of the 
woods, and deligned to fecure the women, children, and 
cattle, whild the warriors of the tribe inarched out to 
repel a fudden invafion. 
Tacitus however allerts, as a v/ell-known fai^l, that 
the Germans, in his time, had no cities; and that they 
ad'eCted to defpife the works of Roman indudry, as 
places of confinement rather than ot fectnity. Their 
edifices were not even contiguous, or formed into regu. 
lar villas ; each barbarian fixed his independent dwelling 
on the fpot to which a plain, a wood, or a dream ot 
frelh water, had induced him to give the preference. 
Neither done, nor brick,, nor tiles, were employed in 
6 C tilde 
