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riesbeck's travels through germanv.

LETTER XLV.

Leipfick.

THE commerce and manufactures of this place are very confiderable. It is the cen-ter of the book trade of all Germany, and of the wool trade of all Saxony , and thereare few cities in Germany which furpafs it in commerce and exchange. Here theymake velvets, woven filks, Ihags, linens, cloths, rattines, carpets, and a great variety ofother things. This city fupplies the greateft part of Saxony with drugs and apothe-caries wares, and has a confiderable fhare of the trade which is carried on betwixt thefouth of Germany, Switzerland, Italy , and the North. There are feveral wealthyhoufes here.

The fair, which ended a week before my arrival, according to the report of both na-tives and foreign merchants, is ho more than a Ihadow of what it was thirty years ago.The moft remarkable part of the prefent trade, is the exchange of books, carried on bythe German bookfellers. This they fometimes execute by commiffion, but for the moltpart they appear in their own high perficns. Their number is about three hundred,and the value of the books they exchange amounts to 500,000 rix-dcllars, or about1,751,000 livres.

Leipfick maintains itfelf in the pofleffion of this trade, not fo much from its having vonce taken that channel, as from the great quantity of books publilhed in the city itfelf;and its centrical fituation in the midft of a country where ail the arts flourilh, and read-ing and writing are moft univerfal. Thefe are the caufes, which in my opinion, haverendered all the attempts to deprive the city of this trade abortive.

The Auftrian bookfellers have hitherto been the only ones who have not appeared re-gularly and in great numbers at this mart of literature. The reftraint they lay underfrom the licence office, and the reftraints they are lain under by the heavy wit of theirwriters, have difabled them from bringing any paper to market, good enough to pro-cure an exchange from the other dealers.

Leipfick is indebted for this trade, which in my opinion, is the only one of the kindin all Europe , entirely to the merit of the inhabitants of this place, and other parts ofSaxony. Saxony was the cradle of literature and tafte in Germany . The Swifs hadindeed contributed fomething by theories towards railing the edifice of the arts, buttheories form neither arts nor tafte, nor has the German part of Switzerland produceda fingle literary production of merit, Gefner’s works excepted. Thofe of Haller arewritten in a barbarous dialed, and few of them are uniformly good. His beauties arefingle ones; they are feparate pidures, woven into philofophical declamations. Naturegives the firft diredion to art, which afterwards is not to be improved by any theories,but by the fight of, and fenfibility for, the moft ftriking and moft beautiful objeds ofnature. Thefe it is, which form the original artift. And it is the reading, feeling, andcomparing the works of thefe original artifts, that form the imitator. Nor is tafte itfelfa confequence of any theoretical knowledge; for it is well known, that thofe who haveformed the founded: theories, have been very unfuccefsful, both in the works producedby themfelves, and the judgment they have palfed upon thofe of other people. Theo-ries depend upon conclufions of the underftanding, which will always be falfe when thepremifes are fo ; but the quicknefs occafioned by the perception and comparifon of va-rious beautiful objeds, which conftitutes what we call tafte, will never go aftray. It istrue, indeed, that this perception and quicknefs cannot exift without fome natural difpo-fttions towards them.

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