Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Pages ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
158 RIESSECK’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY?
LETTER XLV.
Leipfick.
THE commerce and manufactures of this place are very confiderable. It is the cen-
ter of the book trade of all Germany, and of the wool trade of all Saxony, and there
aré few cities in Germany which furpafs it in commerce and exchange. Here they
make velvets, woven filks, fhags, linens, cloths, rattines, carpets, and a great variety of
other things. This city fupplies the greateft part of Saxony with drugs and apothe-
caries wares, and has a confiderable fhare of the trade which is carried on betwixt the
fouth of Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and the North. ‘There are feveral wealthy
houfes here.
The fair, which ended a week before my arrival, according to the report of both na-
tives and foreign merchants, is no more than a fhadow of what it was thirty years ago.
‘The moft remarkable part of the prefent trade, is the exchange of hooks, carried on by
the German bookfellers. This they fometimes execute by commiflion, but for the moft
part they appear in their own high perfons. Their number is about three hundred,
and the value of the books they exchange amounts to 500,0co rix-dollars, or about
1,7 51,000 livres,
Leipfick maintains itfelf in the poffeffion of this trade, not fo much from its having
once taken that channel, as from the great quantity of books publithed in the city itfelf,
and its centrical fituation in the midft of a country where all the arts flourifh, and read-
ing and writing are moft univerfal. Thefe are the caufes, which in my opinion, have
rendered all the attempts to deprive the city of this trade abortive.
The Auttrian bookfellers have hitherto been the only ones who have not appeared re-
gularly and in great numbers at this mart of literature. ‘The reftraint they lay under
from the licence office, and the reftraints they are lain under by the heavy wit of their
writers, have difabled them from bringing any paper to market, good enough to pro-
cure an exchange from the other dealers.
Leipfick is indebted for this trade, which in my opinion, is the only one of the kind
in all Europe, entirely to the merit of the inhabitants of this place, and other parts of
Saxony. Saxony was the cradle of literature and tafte in Germany. ‘The Swifs had
indeed contributed fomething by theories towards raifing the edifice of the arts, but
theories form neither arts nor tafte, nor has the German part of Switzerland produced
a fingle literary production of merit, Gefner’s works excepted. Thofe of Haller are
written in a barbarous dialeét, and few of them are uniformly good. His beauties are
fingle ones; they are feparate pictures, woven into philofophical declamations. Nature
gives the firft direction to art, which afterwards is not to be improved by any theories,
but by the fight of, and fenfibility for, the moft ftriking and moft beautiful objects of
nature. Thefe it is, which form the original artift. And it is the reading, feeling, and
comparing the works of thefe original artifts, that form theimitator. Nor is tafte itfelf
a confequence of any theoretical knowledge ; for it is well known, that thofe who have
formed the foundeft theories, have been very unfuccefsful, both in the works produced
by themfelves, and the judgment they have pafled upon thofe of other people. Theo-
ries depend upon conclufions of the under{tanding, which will always be falfe when the
premifes are fo; but the quicknefs occafioned by the perception and comparifon of va-
rious beautiful objeéts, which conftitutes what we call tafte, will never go aftray. It is
true, indeed, that this perception and quicknefs cannot exift without fome natural difpo-
fitions towards them.
The
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
