, and sail for his life down to
Constantinople, at one time. In which sad adventure Burggraf Johann
escorted him, and as it were tore him out by the hair of the head.
These troubles and adventures lasted many years; in the course of which,
Sigismund, trying all manner of friends and expedients, found in the
Burggraves of Nurnberg, Johann and Friedrich, with their talents,
possessions and resources, the main or almost only sure support he got.

No end of troubles to Sigismund, and to Brandenburg through him, from
this sublime Hungarian legacy! Like a remote fabulous golden-fleece,
which you have to go and conquer first, and which is worth little
when conquered. Before ever setting out (A.D. 1387), Sigismund saw too
clearly he would have cash to raise: an operation he had never done
with, all his life afterwards. He pawned Brandenburg to Cousin Jobst of
Mahren; got "20,000 Bohemian gulden,"--I guess, a most slender sum, if
Dryasdust would but interpret it. This was the beginning of Pawnings
to Brandenburg; of which when will the end be? Jobst thereby came into
Brandenburg on his own right for the time, not as Tutor or Guardian,
which he had hitherto been. Into Brandenburg; and there was no chance of
repayment to get him out again.

COUSIN JOBST HAS BRANDENBURG IN PAWN.

Jobst tried at first to do some governing; but finding all very
anarchic, grew unhopeful; took to making matters easy for himself.
Took, in fact, to turning a penny on his pawn-ticket; alienating crown
domains, winking hard at robber-barons, and the like;--and after a few
years, went home to Moravia, leaving Brandenburg to shift for itself,
under a Statthalter (VICEREGENT, more like a hungry land-steward), whom
nobody took the trouble of respecting. Robber-castles flourished;
all else decayed. No highway not unsafe; many a Turpin with sixteen
quarters, and styling himself EDDLE HERR (noble Gentleman), took to
"living from the saddle:"--what are Hamburg pedlers made for but to be
robbed?

The Towns suffered much; any trade they might have had, going to wreck
in this manner. Not to speak of private feuds, which abounded _ad
libitum._ Neighboring potentates, Archbishop of Magdeburg and others,
struck in also at discretion, as they had gradually got accustomed to
do, and snapped away (ABZWACKTEN) some convenient bit of territory, or,
more legitimately, they came across to coerce, at their own hand, this
or the other Edle Herr of the Turpin sort, whom