Hanover contains about 750 parishes, with seven super intendantt. The people are divided into Jews and Chris tians, and •he Christians into Catholics, Calvinists, and Lutherans .before the union of Osnaburg, the Jews were the most numei%us sect next to the Lutherans. The Jews are the principal hankers in the large cities, and they keep butchers' shops in the small villages.
The Lutheran is the established religion. The supreme consistory, composed of tome or the most enlightened citizens, has the right of superintending all the other sects.
raised in Hanover. Their domestic linens are principally made of flax, which is never spun sufficiently fine to be made into lawns or cambrics. There are also manu factories for coarse cloth and paper, several tanneries, and some glass-houses; and a manufactory for iron and copper utensils at Hartz. The coarse cloths arc principally used by the poor, and for clothing the army. The paper is in ferior to the Dutch and French papers. One hall of the leather, which is not good, is consttmed in the kingdom, and the other half exported to Saxony and Belgium. The best glass is made in the bailiwick of Lauinstein. The manufacture of iron articles at Hartz is said by Mangeu rit to be superior to any thing of the kind carried on in France. Silver plate, jewellery, gold and silver lace, em broidery, and saddlery, are made at Hanover. Diamonds are set in a very superior manner, and the artists also cut white, yellow, or red amber globes, with facets for car-rings, necklaces, and bracelets, which are bought by the Jews, and sold at an enormous profit.
The principal articles of export are, horses, black cattle, wax, lead, linens, leather, salt, oats, barley, thread, the iron and copper of Hartz, the turf of Bremen, and planks of timber. The two last articles are bought by the merchants of the Hanse and maritime cities.
The principal towns in the kingdom of Hanover are, Hanover, Gottingen, Bremen, Osnaburg, Stade, Ratzeburg, Munden, Zell, Hameln, Klausthal, Einbeck, Harburg, Ultzen, Lauenburg, Mollen, Hefeld, Nordheim, Osterodc, Verden, and Nienburg.
Einbeck, or Einbike, the capital of the principality of Grubenhagen, is a walled and fortified town, situated in a fertile territory at the confluence of the Ilm, Krumewasser, and Leine, near the borders of Calenburg. Besides ram parts, bulwarks, and towers, it has moats and outworks. Considerable quantities of woollen cloth are made here, and it has several breweries. Its population is 4500. Os terode, containing 4000 inhabitants, is situated six leagues east of Einbeck, at the conflux of the Sole and Apelike. It has an ancient castle ; and a manufacture of camblets, besides quarries and mills, and lime-kilns. Nordheim, erect ed into a town in 1252, is situated on the Ruhme, which here divides itself into two branches, a few miles above their influx into the Leine. The organ of the parish church is famous for its immense size. Tobacco is cultivated in the neighbourhood, and it has several flourishing manufac-, tures. Near this town a sulphureous spring was disco vered in 1804, and baths have been erected at the house of the woodkeeper. It contains 3000 inhabitants. Ultzen, or Uelzen, is a trading town, consisting of 330 houses, situat ed on the Ilmenau, at the confluence of several small streams. It had formerly a great trade in flax, linens, wool, wax, and butter ; but it is now on the decline. Verden has
a fine cathedral, with very interesting monuments, and a population of 4000. Danneberg is a decayed town of 160 houses, with a ruinous castle on an eminence, watered by the Tetze. The chief export is beer. Nienburg is situat ed on the Saale, in upper Saxony, but near the borders of Lower Saxony, it has a fine stone bridge over the Weser. It contains a palace erected out of a convent of monks, and is celebrated for a kind of beer like English ale. For an account of the other towns, SCC BREMEN, Go TTINGEN. HA MELN, HANOVER, HARBOURG, KLAUSTH1L, LUNEBURG, MUNDEN, OSNABURG, RATZEBURG, STADE, ZELL.
The illustrious house of Hanover is descended from Hargrave Azu, who possessed the Milanese, Genoa, and part of Lombard), in the llth century. He was succeed ed by Welpho the Fat, who married the Marchioness of Tus cany. W. 1pho having died without issue, his Italian estates, and the duchy of Bavaria, came into the possession of his brother IIenry the Black, who obtained the county of Lu nehurgh with his wife Wulphilda, daughter of Magnus' Duke of Saxony. His son Henry the Proud having mar ried the daughter of Lotharius II. obtained along with her the duchy of Saxony, and the hereditary lands of Bruns wick Nordheim, and Supplingenburg ; and the dominions of the family extended from the Rhine to the Vistula, when her son Henry the Lion reduced the Slavi, on the coast of the Baltic. In 1179, he was put under the ban by the Em peror, and deprived of all his possessions in Italy and Swa bia, and of the duchies of Saxony and Bavaria. Ile was allowed, however, to retain Luneburg, some lordships, and his Slavian conquests. His son Otho obtained the imperial dignity in 1209; and, in the course of time, his family was divided into two branches, two of which now exist, viz. those of Wolfenbuttel and Zell. The first was founded by Hen ry, and the second by William, the sons of the Duke Er nest,who introduced into his dominions the reformed faith. Ernest Augustus, his grand nephew, and Elector of Han over, married Sophia, the daughter of the Elector palatine, and of Elizabeth, the daughter of James I. of England, and established the right of primogeniture in the Wilhel mine line. In the year 1714, George Louis his son suc ceeded, in virtue of the act of succession, (see BRITAIN,) to the throne of England, and since that time the kings of England have been the electors of Hanover. In the year 1715, the Duchy of Verden Was ceded to the Elector of Hanover by the alliance concluded at Wismar; and in 1719. by the treaty of Stockholm, Bremen was also transferred to the elector, who, in 1732, obtained the emperor's inves titure for both Bremen and Verden. In October 1801, the Prussians, under the fatal influence of the government of France, had declared war against Great Britain, and had taken possession of the Electorate of Hanover ; but at the peace of Amiens, the electorate was restored to its lawful sovereign. The Bishopric of Osnaburg, or Osnabruck, which, by the peace of Osnaburg, was to be occupied al ternately by a Roman Catholic and a Lutheran bishop, the last of whom must be selected out of the house of Bruns wick Luneburg, was secularised by the treaty of Luneville, and was ceded by the treaty of Amiens, in 1802, to George as elector of Hanover.