it is almost, in some senses, the LONDON AND MIDDLESEX
of the Germany that then was, if we will consider it!

This is a place to give a man chances, and try what stuff is in him. The
office involves a talent for governing, as well as for judging; talent
for fighting also, in cases of extremity, and what is still better, a
talent for avoiding to fight. None but a man of competent superior parts
can do that function; I suppose, no imbecile could have existed many
months in it, in the old earnest times. Conrad and his succeeding
Hohenzollerns proved very capable to do it, as would seem; and grew and
spread in it, waxing bigger and bigger, from their first planting there
by Kaiser Barbarossa, a successful judge of men. And ever since that
time, from "about the year 1170," down to the year 1815,--when so much
was changed, owing to another (temporary) "Kaiser" of new type, Napoleon
his name,--the Hohenzollerns have had a footing in Frankenland; and done
sovereignty in and round Nurnberg, with an enlarging Territory in that
region. Territory at last of large compass; which, under the names
MARGRAFDOM OF ANSPACH, and of BAIREUTH, or in general MARGRAFDOM OF
CULMBACH, which includes both, has become familiar in History.

For the House went on steadily increasing, as it were, from the first
day; the Hohenzollerns being always of a growing, gaining nature;--as
men are that live conformably to the laws of this Universe, and of
their place therein; which, as will appear from good study of their old
records, though idle rumor, grounded on no study, sometimes says the
contrary, these Hohenzollerns eminently were. A thrifty, steadfast,
diligent, clear-sighted, stout-hearted line of men; of loyal nature
withal, and even to be called just and pious, sometimes to a notable
degree. Men not given to fighting, where it could be avoided; yet with
a good swift stroke in them, where it could not: princely people after
their sort, with a high, not an ostentatious turn of mind. They, for
most part, go upon solid prudence; if possible, are anxious to reach the
goal without treading on any one; are peaceable, as I often say, and by
no means quarrelsome, in aspect and demeanor; yet there is generally in
the Hohenzollerns a very fierce flash of anger, capable of blazing
out in cases of urgency: this latter also is one of the most constant
features I have noted in the long series of them. That they grew in
Frankenland, year after year, and century aft