LETTER XIX.
The country about Frankfort is delightful, rich and fruitful, and watered by the beautiful river Maine, which divides the city into two parts, that on the North being called Frankfort, and that on the South, Saxenhausen, from the Saxons, who are supposed to have been the founders of it. The city itself is large, populous and rich, and distinguished for being the place where the Emperor and King of the Romans is elected——though, by the appointment of Charlemagne, Cologne has a superior claim to that honour. The Magistrates, and great part of the inhabitants, are Lutherans or Calvinists; notwithstanding which, most of the Churches are in the hands of the Roman Catholics——a laudable instance of the true tolerant spirit of a wise and virtuous institution, and a heavy reflection upon, as well as a noble example to the Popish Powers of Europe.
The territory belonging to Frankfort is of very considerable extent; and the trade carried on through it, by means of the rivers Rhine and Mayne, of very great importance, not only to the country itself, but to other commercial nations, and particularly to Great Britain, whose manufactures are sent to Frankfort, and thence circulated through the Continent, in amazing quantities.
The fairs of Frankfort are talked of all over Europe——of such importance are they in the world of commerce. They are held, one at Easter, and another in September, and continue for three weeks, during which time the resort of people there from all quarters is astonishing. Every thing is done by the Government to render them as attractive to Merchants as possible; and the taxes or duties are extremely low——a bale of the value of ten or twenty thousand crowns paying duty only about ten or eleven pence of our money. All commodities from all parts of the world are sold there, and circulated through the Empire; but, particularly, books are sold in prodigious quantities. After the fairs are over, the shops of the foreign Merchants are shut up, and their names written over their doors.
To give an idea of the great importance these fairs are to commerce, I need only mention, that in the present war, the impediments thrown by the French in the way of the transit of goods up the Rhine, and the shutting up that fair, gave a most alarming paralysis to the manufacturing establishments of England, and a shock to public credit in consequence, that would, but for the timely interference of Parliament, have, in all probability, been fatal to the national credit.
Frankfort is in many respects a pleasant place: the Merchants are extremely convivial and sociable, and form clubs, where they meet to drink tea and coffee, and play at cards. There is a play-house also, a great number of coffee-houses, and other houses of entertainment in abundance. The country around is covered with woods and vineyards; and the circumjacent villages are very pleasant, and well supplied with houses of entertainment, to which the inhabitants of the city resort in the Summer season; and the inns in Frankfort are excellent.
A singular custom prevails here, which I think worth mentioning: Taverns are denoted by pine-trees planted before the doors of them; and the different prices of the wines in their cellars are marked in ciphers on the door-posts.
In the town here is presented the original Golden Bull, or Pope’s Authority, which contains the rules and orders to be observed at the election of the Emperors. This Golden Bull is never shewn to strangers but in the presence of two of the Council and the Secretary——It is a little manuscript in quarto, consisting of forty-two leaves of parchment, with a gold seal of three inches diameter, of the value of twenty duckets, hung to it by a cord of yellow silk. It is said to be written in Latin and Gothic characters, without diphthongs; and kept in a black box, together with two written translations of it into the German language.
It is said of Frankfort, that the Roman Catholics possess the churches, the Lutherans the dignities, and the Calvinists the riches. It is therefore one of the few places in Christendom where the churches and the riches do not go into the same hands.
From Frankfort to Augsburgh, I passed through a number of towns, all of them so very inconsiderable as not to merit any particular description. The way lies from the Palatinate through the Circle of Suabia. In the extreme end of the Palatinate, and immediately before entering the Dutchy of Wirtemberg, the country is covered with fir-trees; and money is so scarce in it, that a loaf of wheaten bread, weighing eight pounds, costs but two pence.
The city of Augsburgh is the capital of a Bishopric of that name in the Circle of Suabia, and is worthy of the attention of the classical traveller for its antiquity. About twelve years before the birth of Christ, Augustus Cæsar subdued all this country, and, on the place where Augsburgh now stands, formed a colony, gave the town the name of Augusta Vindelicorum, and put it under the government of Drusus, the brother of Tiberius, afterwards Emperor of Rome. The inhabitants of this place were the Vindelic, a branch of the Illyrians. But, ancient though it be, it has little more of antiquity to entitle it to notice than the bare name; for it has been pillaged so often, particularly by that monster Attila, that there are scarcely any remains of its antiquity to be found.
Augsburgh is now, however, a handsome city——the public buildings in general magnificent, and adorned with fountains, water engines of a curious construction, and statues.
The most rich and splendid part of the town belongs to a family of the name of Fuggers (originally descended from a weaver), who enriched themselves by commerce, and one of whom rendered not only himself, but the whole family, conspicuous, by entertaining the Emperor Charles the Fifth in a superb manner, and supplying him with money, and then throwing his bond into the fire; in return for which, the Emperor made him a Count of the Empire.
This city is remarkable for goldsmiths’ ware; and its mechanics are equal to any in the world, for works in gold, ivory, clocks, and time-pieces; and they engrave better than any people in Germany, which brings them considerable profits. But what they are, above all other people, eminent for, is the manufacturing steel-chains so prodigiously fine, that when one of them, of a span in length, has been put about the neck of a flea, it lifts up the whole of it as it leaps; and yet those are sold for less than a shilling of our money a piece.
Controversy, and difference in religious opinions, which has almost, ever since the commencement of Christianity, disgraced the human understanding, and defaced society, imposes upon the liberal, well-thinking traveller, the office of satirist but too often. Augsburgh, however, is a splendid exception, and holds up a most glorious spectacle of manly sense, generous sentiment, justice, and I will say policy too, vanquishing that shark-jawed enemy of Mankind, bigotry. The Magistracy of Augsburgh is composed of about an equal number of Protestants and Roman Catholics——their Senate consisting of twenty-three Roman Catholics and twenty-two Lutherans, and their Common Council of a hundred and fifty of each: The executive power is lodged in the Senate——the legislative authority in both bodies. But, what is hardly to be found any where, they all, as well as the People, agree together in the most perfect harmony, notwithstanding the difference of religion; and at all tables but the Communion table, they associate together, dip in the same dish, and drink of the same cup, as if they had never heard of the odious distinction of Papist and Protestant, but as being bound to each other by the great and irrefragable bond of humanity: fellow-creatures, affected by the same feelings, impelled by the same passions, labouring under the same necessities, and heirs to the same sufferings, their means of assuaging the one, gratifying or resisting another, and supplying the third, are the same, though chequered and varied a little in the mode——the road alone different, the ends alike. Is it not cruel, then——is it not intolerable, that the calamaties inseparable from humanity should be aggravated with artificial stings, and the nakedness of human nature exposed, and rendered more offensive, by factitious calamities of human contrivance? Cursed were those who first fomented those disputes, and cast those apples of discord through the world: blind were they who first were seduced from the paths of peace by them; and more cursed, and more blind, must they be, who, in this time of intellect and illumination, continue, on the one hand, to keep up a system so wicked and so detestable, or, on the other, to submit to error at once so foolish and so fatal.