CHAP. XXVI.

GERMANY.

307

amount are sold at the fairs before noticed, andfrom thence dispersed through the several divi-sions of the east and south-east of Europe , yet ineach of those divisions there are manufactories forsuch goods, and some upon a respectable scale.In Bavaria, the silver manufactured in Augsburg is of large amount. In Munich , the capital, thereare sixteen goldsmiths and seventeen silversmiths,besides jewellers and watchmakers. Nuremburg has been long celebrated for its gilding; and thegold-beaters there prepare much leaf gold, thequality of which is considered to be superior toany other. In Austria , though the EmperorJoseph the Second induced many French andSwiss watchmakers to establish themselves inVienna , foreign watches are sold cheaper andmore extensively than those of their own ma-nufacture ; but in gold and silver plate, theworkmen of Vienna combine solidity withelegance, and their articles are more abundantlyspread within the empire than any of French orother foreign fabrication. The jewellers of Vi-enna maintain the opinion that their work issuperior to any other in Europe . From thegeneral state of ease in which the great body ofthe inhabitants of those fertile dominions live,from the number of enormously rich nobles, andfrom the general taste for whatever is ornamental,the application of gold and silver to purposes ofutility and of decoration must be very con-

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