ts conversion to Christianity by the knights of the Teutonic
Order, to the year 1526, when Albert, Grand-master of that order, made a
treaty with Sigismund, king of Poland, with whom he had been at war, by
which it was stipulated that Albert should hold the duchy as lay prince,
doing homage--how times have changed!--_to the king of Poland!_

We shall devote our remaining space, however, to some extracts from Mrs P.
Sinnett's account of the peasant war, the subject which occupies the whole
of the second volume.

In every historical or biographical work which treats of the Reformation
in Germany, there will be found a short, and only a short, notice of the
peasant war, which broke out on the preaching of Luther, and of the fury
of the anabaptists and others; and in every such notice the reader will
find it uniformly stated that these disturbances and insurrections, though
assuming a religious character, were in their origin substantially of a
political or social nature, springing, in short, from the misery and
destitution of the lower orders. But we do not know where the English
reader will find this general statement so well verified, or so fully
developed, as in the little work before us. In every part of Germany we
see partial insurrections repeatedly taking place, all having the same
unhappy origin; and our wonder is, not that the preaching of the
Reformation should have communicated a new vitality to these
insurrectionary movements, but that, after being allied with religious
feeling, and religious sanction and enthusiasm, they were not still more
tremendous in their results.

Here is one of the earliest of these insurrections: it is a type of the
class. The chapter is headed

"THE DRUMMER OF NIKLASHAUSEN.

"Franconia, (the greatest part of which is now included in the
kingdom of Bavaria) was the smallest of the circles of the empire,
though excelling them all in fertility, and most of them in beauty.
The valley of the Maine, which flows through it, is so rich in
vineyards, that it has been said, it alone might furnish wine to all
Germany; and the river also opens for it a communication with the
Rhine, Holland, and the ocean, by which it might receive the produce
of all other lands. Towards the north, where the hills of Thuringia,
and the Pine Mountains are less productive, its comparative
barrenness is compensated by its riches in minerals and wood. It is,