ured by
thousands whom he esteemed as the best upon earth. Thus it was
possible, that amidst the greatest immorality and perversity, many
manly virtues might be exhibited by individuals; fidelity to their
word, devotion to their friends, and kind-hearted friendliness even to
those whom they had robbed and imprisoned.

It was at this period, under the new Emperor Maximilian, that the
memorable attempt was begun, to give a new constitution to the
shattered body of the Empire, and with it the possibility of a new
life. More than a century elapsed and three generations passed away
before the lesser nobility could accustom themselves to the restraint
of the new laws; but the princes and cities, however much they might
quarrel together, had the greatest interest in enforcing obedience to
these laws. It is however worthy of note, that while losing a portion
of their wild straightforward resoluteness, they adopted the faults
more especially belonging to the new epoch. How the change gradually
took place, we will demonstrate here by a few examples.

A happy accident has preserved to us three autobiographies of
well-known German nobles of different periods of the 16th century,
those of Berlichingen, of Schaertlin, and of Schweinichen; one of them,
so long as the German language lasts, will be intimately associated
with the name of the greatest German poet. These three men, who
flourished in the beginning, the middle, and the end of this celebrated
century, were widely different in character and destiny, but all three
were landed proprietors, and each of them has recorded the events of
his life, so as to give an instructive insight into the social
condition of his circle. The best known is Goetz von Berlichingen; his
memoirs were first published in 1731. The halo, with which three
hundred years after his death, Goethe's charming poem has invested him,
will make it difficult for the reader of his biography to separate the
ideal delineation of the poet from the figure of the historical Goetz.
And yet this is necessary. For however modestly and lovingly Goethe has
portrayed his character, he appears quite different in history. When as
an old man, in a time to which he was a stranger, he wrote his life, he
loved to dwell on the knightly exploits of his wild youth. It was not
his line to enter into political questions; if he found himself in a
crisis he acted according to the advice of his patrons,--the great
sovereigns, who employed