hills they trampled beneath their feet, it was found that no one had
gained any thing but toil and disappointment.

On the 21st of February, 1513, Pope Julius II. died, and the cardinals,
rejecting all the overtures of the emperor, elected John of Medici pope,
who assumed the name of Leo X. The new pontiff was but thirty-six years
of age, a man of brilliant talents, and devoted to the pursuit of
letters. Inspired by boundless ambition, he wished to signalize his
reign by the magnificence of his court and the grandeur of his
achievements.

Thus far nothing but disaster seemed to attend the enterprises of
Maximilian; but now the tide suddenly turned and rolled in upon him
billows of prosperity. It will be remembered that Maximilian married,
for his first wife, Mary, the daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. Their
son Philip married Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, whose
marriage, uniting the kingdoms of Castile and Arragon, created the
splendid kingdom of Spain. Philip died young, leaving a son, Charles,
and Joanna, an insane wife, to watch his grave through weary years of
woe. Upon the death of Ferdinand, in January, 1516, Charles, the
grandson of Maximilian, became undisputed heir to the whole monarchy of
Spain; then, perhaps, the grandest power in Europe, including Naples,
Sicily and Navarre. This magnificent inheritance, coming so directly
into the family, and into the line of succession, invested Maximilian
and the house of Austria with new dignity.

It was now an object of intense solicitude with Maximilian, to secure
the reversion of the crowns of Hungary and Bohemia, which were both upon
the brow of Ladislaus, to his own family. With this object in view, and
to render assurance doubly sure, he succeeded in negotiating a marriage
between two children of Ladislaus, a son and a daughter, and two of his
own grand-children. This was a far pleasanter mode of acquiring
territory and family aggrandizement than by the sword. In celebration of
the betrothals, Ladislaus and his brother Sigismond, King of Poland,
visited Vienna, where Ladislaus was so delighted with the magnificent
hospitality of his reception, that he even urged upon the emperor, who
was then a widower, fifty-eight years of age, that he should marry
another of his daughters, though she had but attained her thirteenth
year. The emperor declined the honor, jocularly remarking--

"There is no method more pleasant to kill an old man, than to marry him