mperor, and fought
in his armies in Germany and Italy; and when Gustavus Adolphus appeared in
Germany, George took service as a Swedish general, and seized the Abbey of
Hildesheim, as his share of the plunder. Here, in the year 1641, Duke
George died, leaving four sons behind him, from the youngest of whom
descend our royal Georges.

Under these children of Duke George, the old God-fearing, simple ways of
Zell appear to have gone out of mode. The second brother was constantly
visiting Venice, and leading a jolly, wicked life there. It was the most
jovial of all places at the end of the seventeenth century; and military
men, after a campaign, rushed thither, as the warriors of the Allies
rushed to Paris in 1814, to gamble, and rejoice, and partake of all sorts
of godless delights. This prince, then, loving Venice and its pleasures,
brought Italian singers and dancers back with him to quiet old Zell; and,
worse still, demeaned himself by marrying a French lady of birth quite
inferior to his own--Eleanor d'Olbreuse, from whom our queen is descended.
Eleanor had a pretty daughter, who inherited a great fortune, which
inflamed her cousin, George Louis of Hanover, with a desire to marry her;
and so, with her beauty and her riches, she came to a sad end.

It is too long to tell how the four sons of Duke George divided his
territories amongst them, and how, finally, they came into possession of
the son of the youngest of the four. In this generation the Protestant
faith was very nearly extinguished in the family: and then where should we
in England have gone for a king? The third brother also took delight in
Italy, where the priests converted him and his Protestant chaplain too.
Mass was said in Hanover once more; and Italian soprani piped their Latin
rhymes in place of the hymns which William the Pious and Dr. Luther sang.
Louis XIV gave this and other converts a splendid pension. Crowds of
Frenchmen and brilliant French fashions came into his Court. It is
incalculable how much that royal bigwig cost Germany. Every prince
imitated the French king, and had his Versailles, his Wilhelmshoehe or
Ludwigslust; his court and its splendours; his gardens laid out with
statues; his fountains, and waterworks, and Tritons; his actors, and
dancers, and singers, and fiddlers; his harem, with its inhabitants; his
diamonds and duchies for these latter; his enormous festivities, his
gaming-tables, tournaments, masquerades, and banquets lasting