LETTER X.
SIR,Carlsbad, October 10, 1729.
When I took leave of the Court of Anspach, I was honour'd with a precious mark of the Margravine's Goodness, viz. a weighty Gold Medal; and now I am again upon my Journey. I was not many hours in travelling from Anspach to Nuremberg, thro' a Country extremely sandy, but very well cultivated, and interspers'd with considerable Villages which in our Country wou'd be reckon'd Towns.
So much has already been said by others of the City of Nuremberg, that I have very little to add to it. I assure you this Town is the most disagreeable Place in Europe to live in. The Patricians are the People of the first Rank there, and lord it like the petty Nobles of Venice. The Government here too has very great Resemblance with the Venetian, and they have a sort of Doge. In short they are very much like the Frog in the Fable that strove to swell it self to the Size of the Ox. Of these Patricians some are very rich, but they are so rude that no body visits them, and they scarce visit one another. Perhaps you will ask me what I mean by the Term Patricians? 'Tis this; they are Gentlemen:
There are Patrician Families old enough to dispute Antiquity with any of the Nobility whatsoever, and who were formerly admitted into all the Chapters. But now the case is otherwise; for the Nobility not only exclude them out of the Chapters, but dispute their being Gentlemen; pretending that they derogate from the Title by their Magistratical Offices. Such is, you know, our Germanic Vanity; the things which are honourable in other Countries, are with us diminutive: The Court, the Sword, and the Church, are the only Professions that a Gentleman can follow: If he has not the Talents proper for one or other of these, or if Fortune frown upon him, he had better be out of the World than take any Offices of the Magistracy upon him, or enter into Trade: He had better beg Alms nobly than marry beneath himself. But I shall not here set up for a Censor of the Germanic Customs. Let us talk of Nuremberg. This City has 6 Gates, 12 Conduits, and 118 Wells. Of the Churches St. Laurence's is the biggest: There's a great many Reliques in it, particularly a part of the Manger in which our Saviour was laid, a piece of his Garment, and three Links of the Chains which bound St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John. As the Lutherans make no great account of those Reliques, they wou'd do well to give them to some poor Catholic Convent, which would thereby soon be enrich'd.
You know that the Government here is altogether Evangelical, i. e. Lutheran. The Catholics have a small Church in the House of the Teutonic Order: The Calvinists go to the Church in the Territory of Anspach; but the Jews are not tolerated because 'tis said they formerly poisoned the Wells. They live in a Place not far from Nuremberg, but come to Town every Morning, paying something for their Entrance, have an old Woman set over
them, who is commonly both their Guard and their Guide, and are permitted to trade and trick wherever they can till Night, when they are obliged to retire.
In the Church of the Hospital is kept Charlemain's Crown, said to weigh fourteen Pounds, the Sceptre and the Globe, in short all the Ornaments of Empire except Charlemain's Sword said to have been brought from Heaven by an Angel, the same very likely that carry'd the holy Vial and the Oriflamb to France. That Sword is kept at Aix la Chapelle.