The home life of the respectable citizen of the seventeenth century was as strictly regulated as was his wooing, prudent and circumspect, even in the most minute particulars. His energies were occupied in strenuous labour from morning to evening, which afforded him a secret satisfaction. Thoughtful and meditative, the artisan sat over his work, and sought to derive pleasure 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 Historical documents, the legal usages of nations, the old works of theologians, the lives of the saints, and stores of words of all languages were compiled in massive works, the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.