e threw his whole soul. But it was just this union of
restrictive tradition and free invention which was so beneficial to the
handicraft of the cities, developing everywhere greater wealth, higher
morality and culture. Throughout the whole country the cities became
like the knots of a net of free societies, to which the gentry of the
rural districts, far behindhand in civilisation, were in constant
hostility. Long did an active hatred continue betwixt the money-getting
citizen and the predatory landed proprietor; and on both sides there
was bitter animosity. It is true that the noble order of Landowners
were held in greater consideration; they were sustained by the pride of
noble blood and of military skill, and by a multitude of prerogatives
and privileges; but in fact the money-making citizen had already
acquired the best rights, for so completely did he engross the whole
culture and wealth of his time, that without him the country would have
relapsed into barbarism.

Thus he became the aid of the Reformation, and the victim of the Thirty
Years' War. But even after the devastation of that period, he, the weak
and impoverished artizan of the city, felt himself a privileged man,
whose prosperity depended on the superior rights he possessed. He
endeavoured carefully to guard against strangers the privileges of his
guild, of his patrician chamber, and of his community; he was only
helpless in his relations with his sovereign. He was still an order in
the new state, from which other orders were excluded. His work had lost
much of its excellence, and this weakness has lasted up to the present
day. Not only were trade and commerce impeded, but the technical skill
of most of the artizans became less. Wood carvings and painted glass
had almost perished, the arts of stone and wood carving were at the
lowest ebb, and the houses were built small, tasteless, and bare.
Printing and paper, which the small printing presses had deteriorated
already before the war, continue poor even in our century. Equally so
were the arts of the metal workers, goldsmiths, and armourers. The
works of the cabinet-maker alone maintained their excellence through
the rococco time, though even the _chef d'[oe]uvres_ of the celebrated
Meister von Neuwied could not compare with the artistic chests of the
Augsburgers about 1600; the art of weaving also, especially damask,
came into fashion soon after 1650, but not in the cities preeminently.
The new trades wh