ful consternation.'

P. 90. 'I must be gone.' Cf. Lib. IV. section 2. A chapter in
which Dietrich rises into a truly noble and pathetic strain.
'Coming to Schmalcald,' he says, 'Lewis found his dearest friends,
whom he had ordered to meet him there, not wishing to depart without
taking leave of them.'

Then follows Dietrich's only poetic attempt, which Basnage calls a
'carmen ineptum, foolish ballad,' and most unfairly, as all readers
should say, if I had any hope of doing justice in a translation to
this genial fragment of an old dramatic ballad, and its simple
objectivity, as of a writer so impressed (like all true Teutonic
poets in those earnest days) with the pathos and greatness of his
subject that he never tries to 'improve' it by reflections and
preaching at his readers, but thinks it enough just to tell his
story, sure that it will speak for itself to all hearts:--

Quibus valefaciens cum moerore
Commisit suis fratribus natos cum uxore:
Matremque deosculatos filiali more,
Vix eam alloquitur cordis prae dolore,
Illis mota viscera, corda tremuerunt,
Dum alter in alterius colla irruerunt,
Expetentes oscula, quae vix receperunt
Propter multitudines, quae eos compresserunt.
Mater tenens filiuin, uxorque maritum,
In diversa pertrahunt, et tenent invitum,
Fratres cum militibus velut compeditum
Stringunt, nec discedere sinunt expeditum.
Erat in exercitu maximus tumultus,
Cum carorum cernerent alternari vultus.
Flebant omnes pariter, senex et adultus,
Turbae cum militibus, cultus et incultus.
Eja! Quis non plangeret, cum videret flentes
Tot honestos nobiles, tam diversas gentes,
Cum Thuringis Saxones illuc venientes,
Ut viderent socios suos abscedentes.
Amico luctamine cuncti certavere,
Quis eum diutius posset retinere;
uidam collo brachiis, quidam inhaesere
Vestibus, nec poterat cuiguam respondere,
Tandem se de manibus eximens suorum
Magnatorum socius et peregrinorum,
Admixtus tandem, caetui cruce signatorum
Non visurus amplius terram. Thuringorum!

Surely there is a heart of flesh in the old monk which, when warmed
by a really healthy subject, can toss aside Scripture parodies and
professional Stoic sentiment, and describe with such life and
pathos, like any eye-witness, a scene which occurred, in fact, two
years before his birth.

'And thus this Prince of Peace, 'he continues, 'mounting his horse
with many knights, etc. . . . about the end of the month of June,
set forth in the name of the Lord,