December vi.
This morning his Excellency and his retinue arrive at Leipsick by eleven a clock, and lodge at the Golden hen in the high street, to which place I therefore now remove myself.
Leipsick is a neat and compact place, well built, the streets almost straight, and conveniently wide. The market place is a regular quadrangle, surrounded with fair and lofty houses, among which is the town hall, or court of justice. Not far from the market is another small square, at one end of which is a new and spatious room, to which we ascend by stone steps. This serves for an exchange, where the merchants meet. The city has three large churches, one of St. Nicholas, another of St. Thomas, and a third called the New Church. These are all well beautified within, especially that of St. Nicholas, the altar of which is a neat pile, representing in good sculpture the burial and resurrection of our Savior, his shewing his wounds to St. Thomas and the other disciples, and over the whole his ascension in a cloud. At the upper end of the two outward isles are painted two good pieces of perspective. The town has no public buildings, besides an old castle, and a new hospital; the latter of which serves both for the reception of lunatics, and also a house of correction for vagabonds. The fortification is regular, and of the new fashion, but not of any great importance; however it has a foss, that may be filled with water upon occasion from the Pleiss, which washes the walls of the city.
The town is governed by a senate of twenty three, of whom three, called Burgomasters, have the prime authority; and by a chief magistrate, who has the title of consul, and is chosen annually. The present consul is one Romanus, a young gentleman of great fortune, and vast designs; who is erecting a noble palace in the city, built of free stone. Among the senators are several persons of quality, who have fair estates, and a learned education.
There is a good library belonging to the city, lately purchased at the expence of the senators, and which they daily improve by new accessions. Among the citizens of this rank and character I contracted an acquaintance with Mr. Wagner, who speaks good English, and has been long preparing a comment on the obscurities of Barclay’s Euphormio, concerning which he has commissioned me to make several enquiries. Another person of the like learning and civility is Mr. Graevius (brother to the eminent critic in Holland) who has the care of the city library, and favoured me with the sight of it. These with many other particulars, that might be mentioned, are arguments of a rich and flourishing city; which is occasioned partly from the confluence of students to the university; and partly from the benefit of three celebrated fairs of fourteen days each, which are annually kept here, and furnished with merchandizes of all sorts, not only from the several parts of Germany, but likewise from Italy, Hungary, France, Holland, England, and other countries.
The staple commodities of the town are the linen manufacture, and a natural blue earth, which is dug only in some metalic mines of Saxony, and which to the vast advantage of this place is exported from hence to England, Holland, and elsewhere, for the use of dying. As to the execution of justice, adultery is here a capital crime, but in this case the criminal must be convicted by his own confession, to which they oblige him by force of torture. The beauty of the city, which appears to a good advantage by day light, is however not lost in the night, by means of their new lamps, which are ranged in an orderly manner, stand very close to each other, and are kept with great neatness. The gardens of the principal gentlemen, and merchants here resident, are without the fortifications; and being as well exceeding rich, as beautified with great art, add a noble ornament to the place.
The university is in a flourishing state, and has a true taste of polite literature, especially as to philosophical studies. Tho I know not whether they merit that character with regard to classical learning. It is not now so numerous as formerly; because Hall, which within these ten years has been erected into an university by the King of Prussia, depriving them of their numbers, has reduced them perhaps from three to one thousand students. They have six colleges, called Paulinum, Petrinum, Majorum and Minorum Principum, Rubrum, and B. Mariae Virginis. Each of these have their praepositus, and some few stipends. But when we mention academical colleges abroad, we must fall much below the idea of those, with which we are so happily acquainted at Oxford and Cambridge. In these colleges are their auditories, or schools, of public lectures for philosophy, and the three superior faculties. These are regularly taught by their respective professors, of which the university is furnished with six in divinity, five in law, four in physic, and nine in philosophy, humanity, and history. Besides these, several of the more eminent doctors, and elder students, have their private lectures, to which the younger resort at their pleasure, and this with greater frequency and better success, than to the lectures publicly established. The degrees in philosophy are that of batchelor and master of arts; in the faculties, of licentiate and doctor. Persons of note in the university, whom I visited, were Dr. Efficke professor of divinity; and Dr. Otto Menchenius professor of moral philosophy, who is likewise the editor of the Acta Eruditorum, of which I purchased an intire set from the year 1682 to this present time, consisting of twenty five volumes in quarto. Other eminent persons, with whom I had a more frequent conversation, were Dr. Goëtze, Dr. Menchenius junior, and Mr. Olearius junior. The two former are doctors of law, and the latter professor of humanity. To these I may add Mr. Thomas Fritsel bookseller, a person who has made an useful tour over Europe; speaks several modern languages, as well as Latin; and to whom I was obliged for a particular mark of courtesy, and the present of several useful books. Not only he, but the three gentlemen last mentioned speak good English, which language is much esteemed and studied in this place. Dr. Menchenius shewed me the little work of Alcyonius De exilio, which I was glad to see, because it is said to have been compiled out of Cicero’s treatise De gloria; which the plagiary for that reason took occasion to suppress. Dr. Goëtze among several fair manuscripts, and old editions of classic authors, shewed me a neat but antient satyr On the Pope and Court of Rome. It is a manuscript, as yet unprinted, in Elegiac verse, entitled Eironeia Gaufridi. He has also a curious and fair manuscript of Columella, another of a Greek Menologion, a very old Greek Testament, printed in Spain, with the Latin in the margin; but exactly referring in every word by cautious notes from the known to the unknown language, lest the monks of that time should have taken γενέσεως to signify liber, and βίβλος generationis. In another old Spanish book, concerning the antiquities of that country, he shewed me a copy of the old Gothic character; in which it is observable, that the vowels are generally incorporated with the consonants, which they follow.
In the two libraries of this place, the one belonging to the university, the other to the senate, I took notice of the following curiosities.
In the former I observed two celebrated pictures of Luther and Melancthon, both taken after their death. Several specimens of what they called moneta bracteata, lately found in Saxony; but which I take to have been only leaves of silver covering a mass of inferior metal. An old manuscript of Homer, with large Scholia, which they here think have never been published. The draught of an old idol worshiped in Germany; the original of which was a short brass image of an human figure, hollow within, and contrived to make an artificial wind issue out of his mouth, like the globes of that sort now become so common.
In the library of the senate I observed an Egyptian mummy. Several Roman urns and funeral lamps. Saxon urns, like others which I observed at Dresden and elsewhere, full of thin fragments of bones; in one of which were found several small iron and brass instruments, and upon a thin plate of brass the two following letters, ⲱ. ⲉ. A fine collection of coins. A good manuscript of Theocritus. A noble specimen of the rich silver mines in Saxony, in a mass about three feet long and two broad, the whole of which almost is pure metal.
Adjoining to the Collegium Paulinum is the university church, where they have prayers on festival days. It is full of antient and modern monuments, all of good work. This university took its rise from the dispersion of the Hussites, and the banishment of John Huss himself from Prague. And by its first constitution it is appropriated to four nations; the Misnians (of whom Leipsick is the metropolis) the other hereditary countries of the Elector of Saxony, the Bavarians, and the Poles. The chief magistrate annually elected here is called rector magnificus, as in other German universities; and in him, with his subordinate officers, rests the sole government and jurisdiction of this learned body. The present rector is Dr. Cyprianus, professor of divinity.
It was in Leipsick, that I first observed the Lutheran manner of communicating. The priest and the deacon, who assists him, are habited in surplices, copes, and sleeves, like those of the Greeks and Romanists. The service is chanted by the priests standing, and the people round about at a distance, but in the same posture. The consecration being ended, the communicants draw near, and on the north side of the altar approach the priest, who delivers into the mouth of each of them still standing the consecrated wafer. The communicants from thence walk round the back part of the altar, and so come to the deacon, from whom they likewise standing receive the cup, and thence return orderly to their proper places. In the mean time, while the species are delivered by the priest on one side and the deacon on the other, two choristers habited likewise in copes and surplices attend each, holding under them a rich pall of velvet, or other stuff, to receive any particle of the elements, which may fall accidentally. This done, they likewise chant a thanksgiving service in a standing posture, and so depart. The ecclesiastics of the place wear large white ruffs, not only in time of divine service, but likewise as their ordinary habit when in public; and with this a round cloth cap, like that lately alloted to the commoners in the university of Oxford.
These are the principal observations I had leisure to make at Leipsick, where his Excellency staid from the sixth to the fourteenth of this month. On this day therefore we proceed on our journey five German miles to Hall over an open arable country. This is an antient city, founded and perfected by the several Othos, Emperors of Germany. It is now large, but meanly built, tho famous for its salt pits, from whence it has the name of Hall. In these they work night and day with an uninterrupted diligence, nor ever cease, but in the time of divine service on Sundays. It is situated on the river Sala, which name corresponds with that of the city.
The King of Prussia, as has been said, Sovereign of the place, opened an university here some years since, which at present flourishes with about a thousand students, and several professors of eminent note, among these are Strychius, Thomasius, and Franckius. The last is the person, who sent me formerly into Turkey several little tracts of his own composition, which had been translated into Latin and Italian, in order to be distributed here. I therefore visited him this evening, and discoursed with him upon his famous project of an ample charity; by which he maintains above six hundred children of both sexes, and that by no other fund, than collections gathered by his own industry. Three hundred of these, being boys, he has reduced to a college, which he now calls the Orphanotrophium. It is an handsome building, well contrived for the reception of so many poor orphans, for their diet, lodging, schooling, clothing, and afterwards their removal to some proper calling. He has here a printing house for the use of the society, and from thence have now been published several treatises, of which he presented me with two, concerning the Jewish history, and the ecclesiastical government of Bohemia. The King of Prussia, who is thought the principal supporter of this great charity, has lately authorized the Orphanotrophium under an ample patent, and allowed both the society, and the founder of it, several honourable and advantageous privileges. By this great undertaking Mr. Franck proposes to lay a scheme and foundation for the reformation of manners, and better advancement of learning at the same time. But as he is one of the primary Pietists in all Germany, the opposite party among the Lutherans in these parts, who in distinction call themselves the Orthodox, cease not to calumniate both him and his design. Tho how justly, God only knows. He delivered me a packet for Mr. Ludolf, and commissioned me to salute Dr. Bray, and Mr. Woodward of Stepney, with whom he corresponds in relation to this intended reformation.