d not keep it long; and it is now part of the
Bavarian Dominion;--for the sake of editors and readers, long may it so
continue!

Of this Younger Line, intrinsically rather insignificant to mankind, we
shall have enough to write in time and place; we must at present direct
our attention to the Elder Line.

THE ELDER LINE OF CULMBACH: FRIEDRICH AND HIS THREE NOTABLE SONS THERE.

Kurfurst Albert Achilles's second son, Friedrich (1460-1536), [Rentsch,
pp. 593-602.] the founder of the Elder Culmbach Line, ruled his country
well for certain years, and was "a man famed for strength of body and
mind;" but claims little notice from us, except for the sons he had.
A quiet, commendable, honorable man,--with a certain pathetic dignity,
visible even in the eclipsed state he sank into. Poor old gentleman,
after grand enough feats in war and peace, he fell melancholy, fell
imbecile, blind, soon after middle life; and continued so for twenty
years, till he died. During which dark state, say the old Books, it
was a pleasure to see with what attention his Sons treated him, and how
reverently the eldest always led him out to dinner. [Ib. p. 612.] They
live and dine at that high Castle of Plassenburg, where old Friedrich
can behold the Red or White Mayn no more. Alas, alas, Plassenburg is now
a Correction-House, where male and female scoundrels do beating of
hemp; and pious Friedrich, like eloquent Johann, has become a
forgotten object. He was of the German Reichs-Array, who marched to the
Netherlands to deliver Max from durance; Max, the King of the Romans,
whom, for all his luck, the mutinous Flemings had put under lock-and-key
at one time. [1482 (Pauli, ii. 389): his beautiful young Wife, "thrown
from her horse," had perished in a thrice-tragic way, short while
before; and the Seventeen Provinces were unruly under the guardianship
of Max.] That is his one feat memorable to me at present.

He was Johann Cicero's HALF-brother, child by a second wife. Like his
Uncle Kurfurst Friedrich II., he had married a Polish Princess; the
sharp Achilles having perhaps an eye to crowns in that direction, during
that Hungarian-Bohemian-Polish Donnybrook. But if so, there again came
nothing of a crown with it; though it was not without its good results
for Friedrich's children by and by.

He had eight Sons that reached manhood; five or six of whom came to
something considerable in the world, and Three are memorable down to
this day. One of his