oreign princes, indeed even in social intercourse
with the Emperor, he was according to the ideas of those times an
agreeable companion, well skilled in knightly pursuits, always good
humoured, amused with every joke made by others, quick at repartee, and
in serious things he appeared really eloquent. In some matters also he
showed in his actions traces of a manly understanding. However unseemly
his tyrannical conduct, as Duke, towards his States, however strange
his open resistance to the Imperial power, and however childish his
hope of becoming elective King of Poland, yet the foundation of all
this was the abiding feeling that his noble origin gave him the right
to aspire to the highest position. He was always engrossed with
political interests and plans. Nothing ever prospered to him, for he
was unstable, reckless, and not to be trusted, but his aims were always
great, either a king's throne or a field-marshal's staff. It was this,
and not his drunken follies, that cast him down from his throne, and at
last into the grave. On one other point he was steadfast,--he was a
Protestant; although he did not hesitate a moment to demand loans of
his Catholic opponents in the most shameless way; yet when the Papal
Legate promised him a considerable revenue, and indeed his
reinstatement in his principality if he would become a Roman Catholic,
he rejected this proposal with contempt. If he engaged himself as a
soldier, it was by preference against the Hapsburgers. Such a
personage, with his freedom from all principle, his complete
recklessness, his impracticable and at the same time elastic character,
and his mind filled with the highest projects, appears to us as a
representative of the dark side which is developed in the Sclavonic
nature.

Other princes of his race, above all his brother Friedrich, are
epitomes of the faults of the German character. Mean, egotistic,
narrow-minded, and suspicious, without decision or energy, Duke
Friedrich was his perfect opposite.

Another contrast is to be found in his biographer and companion, the
Junker Hans von Schweinichen. This comical madcap was a thorough German
Silesian. When a boy, as page of the imprisoned Duke Friedrich, and as
whipping-boy of the son, he had early made a thorough acquaintance with
the wild proceedings of the Liegnitzer court, and been initiated into
all its intrigues. His father, a landed proprietor, had fallen into
debt in consequence of having once become sec