The circulation of books, produced from the pens of ten thousand writers, is facilitated by the two fairs of Leipsic, to which the publishers tabu all parts of Germany resort with the new works they have print ed at their own residences. This general rendez vous becomes the focus of the publications are made known/ their respective me rits are discussed, and the different booksellers ex change with each other the production of their re. spective provinces, which are thus spread over the extensive country in which the language is used, with great regularity, and with a very trifling ex pence in advertising. • One evil is much complained of, the want of pro tection for literary property ; which arises from the great number of sovereigns in whose dominions the same language is spoken. The best productions of the north are frequently pirated in the south. The King of Saxony has indeed prohibited the circula. tion of pirated editions at Leipsic during the fairs ; but that is found insufficient to protect authors whose productions combine excellence with popularity. The average number of works published of late years at Leipsic have been about six thousand, amounting to about ten thousand volumes ; which probably is more than all the other presses of Eu rope deliver. The press in Germany is nearly free, for though in some states there is a previous censu rate, yet it is conducted on liberal principles, and seldom is exercised except on small political works that display more heat than light, or on the class of periodical publications of less than twelve sheets.
No other part of Europe enjoys advantages for education equal to Germany, especially the northern parts of it. The parochial schools are so universal, that none but the wilfully ignorant, or those of im perfect faculties, can be strangers to reading, writ ing, and the first rules of arithmetic. The schools for classical instruction, denominated Gymnasiums, Pedagoguims, and Lyceums, are found in almost every large town, and dispense learning at a very cheap rate. The universities are sufficiently nume rous and sufficiently endowed to provide instruction in the higher branches of knowledge on terms near ly if not strictly gratuitous.
Besides these universities, there are in almost all the capitals of every state institutions for instructing pu pils in the various learning of the medical, clerical, legal, and military professions ; and of agriculture, mining, mid the management of forest lands. There are also abundance of learned societies spread over the whole of Germany, many of whom have, in the course of years, been enabled to assemble such large collections of natural and artificial curiosities, as af ford able assistance to those engaged in the purer of knowledge.
The public libraries, collected in the different ci ties, far exceed any thing that has been known in other countries. These valuable collections are ma. naged with the greatest liberality ; all of them are open for inspection and perusal at all proper seasons; and from most of them the readers may be supplied at their own residence. They thus become active and efficient fountains of knowledge. It would be tiresome to give a list which should comprehend all those, the number of whose volumes exceed 10,000; but we shall present one of those whose volumes are not less than 50,000: viz. Vienna, 550,000 volumes, including manuscripts and localand temporary works; Munich, 400,000 volumes in the royal central library; Gottingen, 280,000 volumes, including some thou sand valuable manuscripts; Dresden, 250,000 printed volumes, and 104.000 manuscripts and small works ; Wolfenbutde, 190,000 printed volumes, 44,000 ma nuscripts, and 6000 Bibles ; Stutgard, 170,000 vo lumes, besides 12,000 Bibles, of all languages and editions ; Berlin, 800,000 volumes, in seven public libraries ; Weimar, 110,000 volumes and 20,000 smaller works ; Prague, 110,000 volumes ; Frank fort, 100,000 volumes, in several public libraries ; Hamburg and Breslau have 100,000 each in their public libraries ; Mentz, 90,000; Darmstadt, 85,000; Cassel, 70,000 ; Grata, 70,000 ; Gotha, 60,000; Marburg, 55,000; Jena, 50,000. The number of
books in all Germany, in such libraries and other in stitutions as are open to the public, has been esti mated at 5,000,000 volumes.
The collections of pictures and of antiquities are correspondent in extent and excellence to the pub lic libraries. The gallery of Dresden, now that those pictures plundered by France have been sent from the Louvre to the places from whence they had been taken, is the first in Europe. The collections at Ber lin, Brunswick, Cassel, and Augsburg, are very fine ; and many private assemblages of pictures, particu larly those of the Princes Liechtenstein, Kaunits, Esterhazy, and of Count Schonbrun, are of the first class. The antique cabinets of Dresden, Munich, and Cassel, are filled with curiosities from remote ages and distant nations ; and the cabinets of natu ral history at Vienna, Berlin, Dresden, Cassel, Man heim, Jena, Munich, and Gotha, are most richly filled.
The greater part of the land in Germany is held by those ancient feudal tenures, which formerly pre vailed in every part of Europe. The possessors of the soil, of whom, in every state, the sovereign is by far the greatest, have under them a species of cus tomary tenants, called subjects (Unterthaner), who have the cultivation of common fields divided into small portions, without the intervention of fences. As soon as the corn is removed from the field, the lord has the right of pasture ; and from these cir cumstances, it is impossible to deviate from an an cient practice, by which the different portions of the common land must be devoted to particular kinds of crops at specific periods. The rotation almost uni versally prescribed, known by the name of dreyfeid Lanchoirihrhaft, consists of a fallow, succeeded by two crops of grain. The fallow, however, generally bears a crop, which is usually either flax, pease, or (very commonly of late) potatoes ; in consequence of a crop on the fallow, the land is seldom properly cleaned of weeds. To this fallow crop generally suc ceeds winter corn, either wheat or rye ; but, in the north, the proportion of the latter to the former is as four to one, and in many parts, especially in Po merania, ten to one. In the southern states, the two kinds of grain are nearly equally cultivated. To the winter corn succeeds barley or oats, as the land is better adapted for one or the other ; or as may have been settled between the ancestors of the present lords, and their tenants in remote periods. By this mode of cultivation, the earth yields but a small in crease. The tenants can keep but little live stock, and therefore make but little manure. The live stock they do keep is generally fed through the winter with straw, and the addition recently of potatoes, with a small portion of corn, and what dung they do pro duce is consequently of a very weak quality. These tenants are commonly holders of small portions of land, and that, in many instances, is necessarily di vided at their decease among all their children; thus, the evil of the cottage system of small farms is clearly experienced. The villages are crowded with little proprietors, who have not either the conven tional or the pecuniary power to improve the soil, who live in a state inferior to labourers, and who, from the smallness of their farms, can only obtain subsistence, by living on the cheapest diet, which of late, as in Ireland, is principally potatoes. Upon this system, the number of husbandmen increases with considerable rapidity ; they form soldiers, and when called out by the military conscriptions of their princes, are placed in a better situation than when living on their farms.