easy rents for long leases. To encourage commerce, he relieved it from embarrassments, he declared Ostend and Trieste free ports, he improved the harbour of the former, he improved the roads leading from Austria and Hungary to the latter; and that he might be perfectly informed of the condition of his people, and be better enabled to provide for the melioration of it, he paid a personal attention to every object in which their welfare was concerned. There was scarcely a district in his dominions which he had not visited. There was scarcely a town in them which had not experienced some mark of his attention. He lived economically, that he might have the means of carrying on his patriotic designs; and he applied a considerable part of the funds accruing from the dissolution of the monasteries in founding schools, building bridges, improving roads, beautifying towns, and other such purposes.

k

The reader is referred to the history of the reigns of Maria Theresa and Joseph the Second for a further account of his measures relative to trade and other matters which are connected with civil history. But the following more properly belong to these miscellanies. One of these was an institution, in the year 1770, for the education of boys intended to be bred to commerce. In this academy four professors were appointed to teach the youth intrusted to their care every branch of knowledge which could be useful to a merchant.'-Another establishment worthy of our notice is a hospital, upon a very extensive plan, for the reception of diseased and infirm people; where proper sustenance and medical assistance were provided for them."

Another institution of a more general nature was that of a society to prevent the distress which the indigent might feel from the suppression of the religious houses. The purpose of it was to administer relief to the distressed from a fund arising from the contributions of the charitable."

THE LIBERAL ARTS.

Whilst the Austrian court were meriting the affections of their subjects by acts of beneficence, the liberal arts experienced their patronage in the establishment

Caraccioli. Preface. 26. 1 Fromagoet's Maria Theresa. 206. Canaccioli's Joseph the Second. 89.

n Idem. 92.

establishment of an academy of engraving at Vienna in 1766. The honours conferred on it may be seen by referring to the German history of that year. °

The empress queen's liberality to men of genius was seen in the person of Metastasio, among others. That elegant poet, we are informed, was enabled by her bounty to pass the evening of life in the most delicious repose, surrounded by every comfort, easy in his circumstances, and secure of immortality, as long as poetry and genius are admired among men."

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ORDERS OF KNIGHTHOOD.

Among the means employed by the Austrian court to excite emulation in their subjects was the institution of several new orders of knighthood. In 1757 the empress queen instituted the order of Maria Theresa for the reward of military merit.-The number of knights was unlimited.

In

"he

The following account of this poet by Mr. Wraxall may be interesting to the reader.After informing us that the emperor Charles the Sixth had prevailed on him "to exchange the "banks of the Tyber and the classic air of Italy for the ungenial climate of the frozen Danube," and saying that Maria Theresa emulated her father in the honour of being his patroness, "receives from her bounty at this time," says Mr. Wraxall, an annual pension of six thousand "florins, or near five hundred pounds sterling; and if we except Voltaire, I believe he is, without "dispute, the wealthiest poet now existing in Europe. From his infancy he seems to have been "not less favoured by fortune than enriched by nature. No person here with whom I have con"versed, ventures to assert positively the name of his parents; and even the precise place of his "birth is hardly less contested than that of Homer. He was born either in Tuscany, or in the "papal territories; but, of an origin very inferior and obscure. When a boy, like Pope, he "lisped in numbers;' composed verses without effort or almost premeditation, and recited them "in the streets of Rome, to which city he had been carried in his childhood. It was there that "his uncommon powers excited the wonder and attention of Gravina, one of the most eminent "legal practitioners of Italy, in the beginning of the present century. Such was their effect on "him, that he took the boy home, educated him; and finding his capacity expand with his years, "Gravina adopted him, and made him heir to his little fortune. Even his real name is totally "unknown, or at least very problematical. The denomination which he bears, and which he has "rendered so celebrated, was given him by Gravina, either to conceal his original name, or as a substitute; Metastasio being a word of Greek derivation, and evidently fictitious.". Wraxall's Memoirs. 1. 367.

Annales de Maria Theresa. 178.

In 1764 the emperor revived the order of St. Stephen.-This was conferred either on military men or ecclesiastics; and consisted of an hundred knights, exclusive of the sovereign, the princes of the blood, and cardinals.

The elector of Saxony, following the emperor's example, in 1768 instituted the order of merit, to be conferred as the reward of military merit.

HANS

4 Clarke's Knighthood. 1. 181. 83.

HANS TOWNS.

ALTHOUGH this confederacy has long since lost the power which it once enjoyed, and many of the towns which formed it are gone to decay, yet its former greatness may, perhaps, render some account of it satisfactory. to such as are interested in commercial history; and the connexion it had with Germany recommends its introduction in this place.

According to Anderson, the word hans means a society or corporation united for their joint benefit.**The precise era of the confederation does not appear to be known. Werdenhagen, who wrote their history, supposes it to have been in the year 1169; and that the league first consisted of the following towns, on the Baltic: Lubec, Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, Gripeswald, Anclam, Stetin, Colberg, Stolpe, Dantzic, Elbing, and Koningsberg. The particular object of the confederation was to protect the confederates from such ravages as some cities had experienced from the Danes, and from the depredations of the pirates who infested the European seas.

One of the first rules of the confederacy was, that no city should be admitted into it, but such as were either situated on the sea, or on some navigable river, commodious for maritime commerce.-Another rule was, not to admit any cities which did not keep the keys of their own gates and exercise civil jurisdiction within themselves; yet it was admitted,

* He cites Lambecius, librarian to the emperor Leopold.-Werdenhagen makes the word

a corruption of an-der-see, near the sea, alluding to the confederacy's first consisting of maritime

mitted, that, in other respects, they might acknowledge some superior lord or sovereign.

Some years after the formation of their league, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, they chose for their protector the grand master of the German knights of the cross and his fraternity, who had, in 1212, made themselves master of Livonia and erected their government there.—Thus they laid the foundation of their future greatness by securing the trade of all the south-eastern side of the Baltic and the countries with which the Vistula and other rivers gave them a communication."-The members of the league held an extraordinary assembly every ten years, at which they solemnly renewed their union, admitted new members, and excluded old ones, if refractory, and transacted other matters relating to their general interests.

The whole confederacy was divided into four classes, over each of which a certain city presided. At the head of the first, and of the whole confederacy, was Lubec; where their records were kept and their general assemblies were usually held. It presided over the Vandalic and Pomeranian towns.-Cologne was the head of the second class, and presided over the countries near the Rhine.-Brunswick was the head of the third; and presided over the cities of Saxony.-And Dantzic was the head of the fourth; and presided over the towns of Prussia and Livonia.

Such had been the progress of the confederacy in the course of a little more than a century, that in 1370, which Werdenhagen fixes as the epoch of their greatest prosperity, that it then consisted of sixtyfour of the principal cities and mercantile towns in Germany and the countries bordering on the Baltic and German seas: and their annual contributions for their ordinary expences were 2,069 dollars.

Beside these sixty-four cities, &c. their historian gives a list of fortyfour more which were only allies of the confederacy. Among these were the principal maritime places in England, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Holland, Sweden, and Russia.

Beside the cities which presided over the several divisions of the confederacy, there were four others, where they had their four principal houses, called comptoirs, or compting-houses.-The first of these was Bruges.