e from the labour of his hands. The workman
was still full of anxiety, but the beautiful product of his hands was
precious to him. Most of the great inventions of modern times were
thought out in the workshops of German citizens, though they may indeed
sometimes have been first brought into practical use in foreign
countries. Scarcely was the war ended when the workshops were again in
full activity, the hammer sounded, the weavers' shuttle flew, the
joiner sought to collect beautiful veined woods, in order to inlay
wardrobes and writing-tables with ornamental arabesques. Even the poor
little scribe began again to enjoy the use of his pen; he encircled his
characters with beautiful flourishes, and looked with heartfelt pride
on his far-famed Saxon _ductus_. The scholar also was occupied
incessantly with thick quartos; but the full bloom of German literature
had not yet arrived. Everywhere, indeed, interest was aroused in
collecting materials and details, and the industry and knowledge of
individuals appears prodigious. But they knew not how to work out these
details, it was pre-eminently a period of collection. Historical
documents, the legal usages of nations, the old works of theologians,
the lives of the saints, and stores of words of all languages were
compiled in massive works, the inquiring mind lost itself in the
insignificant, without comprehending how to give life to individual
learning. It wrote upon antique ink-horns and shoes it reckoned
accurately the length and breadth of Noah's ark, and examined
conscientiously the length of the spear of the old Landsknecht Goliah.
Thus we find that industry did not obtain the full benefit of its
labour; yet it assisted much in training the genius of our great
astronomer Leibnitz; it also helped to give an ideal purpose to man, a
spirit for which he might live.

The war had inflicted much injury on the artisan, and it was first in
domestic life that he began to recover from the effects of it. The
weaker minds withdrew entirely into their homes, for there was little
satisfaction in public life, and their means of defence were
diminished. There was now peace, and the old gates of the battered city
walls grated on their hinges, but trivial quarrels distracted the
council-table, and envious tittle-tattle and malignant calumny
embittered every hour of the year to those stronger minds that exerted
themselves for the public good. A morbid terror of publicity prevailed.
When in t