RIESBECK’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.

18

Augsburg, fol. and in P. von Stelten des altcrn Gefchicbte von Augsburg , 2 vol. in 4X0,which carry it down to the year 1649.

The police of the place is very good, and though the town has no territory, it has noflebts. The waterworks of Augfburg deferve notice much more than thofe of Marly,the mechanifm of them is much more fimple, and the advantage of them much moreconfpicuous.

Augfburg is, however, no longer what it was. It no longer has a Fugger , and aWelfer in it, to lend the emperor millions. In this large and handfome town, formerlyone of the greateft trading towns in Germany , there are no merchants at prefent to befound, who have capitals of more than 2o,oool. The others, mod of whom mud havetheir coaches, go creeping on with capitals of 3 or 4,000k and do the bufinefs of bro-kers and comnnfiioners. Some houfes, however, carry on a little banking trade, andthe way through Tyrol, and Graubundten, occafions fome little exchange between thisplace and Germany .

After thefe brokers and doers of bufinefs by commiflion, the engravers, fiatuaries,and painters, are the mod reputable of the labouring part of the city. Their productions,like the toys of Nuremberg , go every where. There are always fome people of geniusamongft them ; but the finall demand for their art affords them fo little encouragement,that to prevent ftarving, they are moftly confined to the fmall religious works, whichare done elfewhere by Capuchin monks. They furnifh all Germany with little picturesfor prayer-books, and to hang in the citizens’ houfes. Indeed the arts meet with littlefupport in this country. The man of fafhion had much rather keep horfes and hounds,and a ufelefs train of fervants, by whom he is cheated, than provide for an ingeniousartift, and even when, in obedience to fafhion, he is compelled to make fome facrifice togenius, he refts no confidence in the abilities of his countryman. As he is feldom pof-feffed of tafte and difcernment himfelf; he is directed in his choice by the reputation of» fome foreign artift, and leaves merit in his own country to ftarve.- In other provincesof Germany , matters appear to be no better ordered; Mengs, Winckelman, Gluck,Haffe, Handel , and many others, were obliged to acquire reputation abroad, before theirmerits were acknowledged at home.

There is an academy of arts inftituted here, under the protection of the magiftrates-It feems, however, like its patrons, to have no other aim than to produce good mecha-nics, and preferve the manufactures of the city. The fenate, for fome time paft, hasbeen deliberating on fimilar projects, for the encouragement of induftry. As 1 takepart in any improvement for focial happinefs, I was extremely mortified to fee thefe in-tentions thwarted by the very governors of the town themfelves.

The grounds of this inconfiftent oppofition, arile in a great meafure from the- form ofgovernment. The patricians, who, with a very fmall addition of the mercantile part,govern the town ariftocratically, cannot bear to fee the plebeian enabled by his induftryto carry his head above them. Though they extol induftry in the fenate,. they hate andperfecute it in the workfliop. One Shulin, who has made his fortune by a great cotton-work, is a lamentable example of this duplicity. As the millions his induftry hasbrought, allow him to live more fplendidly than the patricians with empty titles, he is be-come the objeCt of their moft furious perfecution *.

* Mr. Nicolai is of a different opinion, lie fays that the burghers take great part in the governmentand that this is one of the free imperial cities in which there is moft liberty, infinitely more than at NuremlbergorUlm. .

This