a hateful extension of the order. A childish
offensive tuft-hunting, a worship of rank, servility and a greed for
titles and outward distinctions, were now general in the cities. The
commercial cities on the North Sea were those that suffered least, and
those countries most which were immediately dependent on the Imperial
court. It was customary then in Vienna to accost as noblemen all those
who appeared to have a right to social pretensions.

Among the mass of privileged persons who now considered themselves as a
peculiar ruling class, in contradistinction to the people, there was
undoubtedly the greatest difference in culture and capacity; but no
injustice is done to many honourable, and some distinguished men, when
the fact is brought forward, that the period from 1650 to 1750, in
which the nobility ruled, and were of most importance, was the worst in
the whole of the long history of Germany.

Undoubtedly, in the time of weakness since 1648, a most comfortable
life was led by the wealthy scion of an old family, who possessed large
property, and was protected by old alliances with influential persons
and rulers. His sons gained profitable court appointments, or high
military places; and his daughters, who were well dowered, increased
the circle of his influential "friends." The landed proprietor himself
had served in the army, had travelled to France or Holland, and brought
with him from thence a number of curiosities; arms and painted articles
from the Eastern nations, a hollow ostrich-egg, polished shells,
artistically carved cherry-stones, and painted pottery, or marble limbs
that had been dug up in Italy. He had, perhaps, somewhere favoured a
learned man with his acquaintance, and received from time to time a
ponderous legal treatise, or a volume of poems, with a respectful
letter. He might have visited in his travels the courts of Anhalt or
Weimar, and been created, by letters patent, a poet or author; he was
member of the _Frucht-bringende Gesellschaft_[41] (the Fruit-Producing
Society), had a beautiful medal attached to a silk ribbon, on which his
herb, sage or, mint--or, if he had been sarcastic at court--a radish,
was represented; he bore the surname of "Scarifier," and comforted
himself with the motto--"Sharp and Nutritious;"[42] and he sometimes
wrote letters on the improvement of the German mother tongue,
unfortunately with many French phrases. For his own information he,
with other cavaliers of education