■RIESBECk’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.

*7

anJ the forfaken afpect of the country, that he does not. Whilfl the baron is makinga figure at court, his vaffals are expofed to the oppreffions of a rapacious Reward, whogenerally contrives, in the fpace of a few years, to amafs fo much wealth as to enablehim to refign his office, and commence baron himfelf.

If a life of extravagance, and a ridiculous paffion for titles, was not fo univerfalamong!! them y if they had more love for the arts and fciences y if they had a tafte formore elegant pleafures than horfes, equipages, and fervants can afford ; if they couldbring over from France fomething more becoming than a ftiff carriage, an affected walk,a tafte for gaming, and a wretched jargon, the German nobles might be the happieftclafs of human beings. Altnoft entirely independant, as the nature of the conflitutionmakes them, they might become, in the fulleft fenfe, the creators of the happinefs oftheir fubjefts, and in return receive their adoration. But they appear not to have Ef-ficient fenfibility to follow fuch a line of conduct. Nature takes her revenge, and theconfequence of their idle extravagance at the court is, that their eftates run gradually indebt, and their refources vaniih.

Augfburg is one of the oldefl: towns in Germany , and one of the moil remarkable ofthem, as it is there, and at Nuremberg , that you meet with the oldeft marks of Germanart andinduftry. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the commerce of this townwas the moft extenfive of any part of fouth Germany , and contributed much to the civi-lization of the country, by the works of art, and variety of neceffaries to the comfort andconvenience of life, which it was the means of introducing. Many things originatedin this town, which have had a great influence on the happinefs of mankind. Not to■mention the many important diets of the empire held here; here, in 952, did a councilconfirm the order for the celibacy of priefts ; here, in 1530, was the confeflion of faithof the proteftants laid before the emperor, and other eftates of Germany , and here, in1555, was figned the famous treaty of peace, by which religious liberty was fecured toGermany .

Many of the houfes are old and ugly, and are built with fo little attention to the rulesof modern tafte, that Winckelman renounced living in Germany after he had feenthem ; but this is what the Engliih call peevifhnefs; and to be fo much taken up withbeauty and form, as to be blind to every other confideration, is folly and vice. Thehoufes in Augfburg muft not be confidered as Roman and Greek temples, but as monu-ments of the architefture of the times in which they were built. Whoever confidersthem in that light, and compares them with the houfes built at Lubeck and Nurem-berg in the fame century, will fee to what a much greater degree of magnificence Augf-burg had arrived in thofe early times. He will fee, too, a great deal of real beauty ofproportion, uniformity, correfpondence of parts, &c. See.

The looks of the inhabitants of Augfburg have fomething very ftriking in them.They are a compound of the Suabian and Bavarian features. The proteftants are molllike the Suabians, and the catholics the Bavarians. It is an obfervation, which hasbeen frequently made, and undoubtedly a true one, that you may diftinguifh a proteftantuf Augfburg, from a catholic, by his looks and manner. Any perfon who goes intotheir refpe&ive churches, will fee ftriking charafteriftical differences in the face. Asthe catholics are more catholic at Augfburg than in any other part of the world, and asthe followers of the feveral religions feldom inter-marry, this difference may the moreeafily be accounted for.

lhe bell account of the fucceffive variations of the government of Augfburg, whichis ariftocratical, is to be met with in D. LangemanteFs Hijtorie des Regiments der Stadt

VOL. vi. x> Au%f-