research, labour, tone, manners, and time; abroad we
get the accumulated prejudices that have arisen from a factitious state
of things; or, what is perhaps worse, their reaction, the servility of
castes, or the truculence of revolution.

About a post beyond Tubingen, a noble ruin of a castle of the middle
ages appeared in the distance, crowning the summit of a high conical
eminence. These were the finest remains we had seen in a long time, and
viewed from the road, they were a beautiful object, for half an hour.
This was the castle of Hohenzollern, erected about the year 980, and the
cradle of the House of Brandenburg. This family, some pretend, was
derived from the ancient Dukes of Alsace, which, if true would give it
the same origin as those of Austria and Baden; but it is usual, and
probably much safer, to say that the Counts of Hohenzollern were its
founders. We must all stop somewhere short of Adam.

I was musing on the chances that have raised a cadet, or a younger
branch, of the old feudal counts who had once occupied this hold, to the
fifth throne in Europe, when we entered an irregular and straggling
village of some 3000 souls, that was not, by any means, as well built as
one of our own towns of the same size. A sign over a door, such as would
be occupied by a thriving trader with us, with "Department of War" on
it, induced me to open my eyes, and look about me. We were in Hechingen,
the capital of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, an independent state, with a
prince of its own; who is the head of his family, in one sense, and its
tail in another; there being, besides the King of Prussia, a Prince of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen adjoining, who is his junior in rank, and his
better in power; having some 40 or 50,000 subjects, while he of
Hechingen has but 15,000. On ascending a hill in the place itself, we
passed an unfinished house, all front, that stood on the street, with no
grounds of any beauty near it, and which certainly was not as large, nor
nearly as well constructed, as one of our own principal country-houses.
This building, we were told, was intended for the town residence of the
heir-apparent, who is married to a daughter of Eugene Beauharnois, and
of course to a niece of the King of Bavaria.

All this was an epitome of royalty I had never before witnessed. The
Saxon duchies, and Bayreuth and Anspach, now merged in Bavaria, had been
the subjects of curious contemplation to us, but they were all the
possessions o