ost
mild and merciful of princes; but he so relaxed the band of social order
by his over-indulgence, that his subjects soon became a horde of
drunkards, sluggards, ruffians, and highwaymen. The present Bishop is
obliged to be their executioner, and to disperse and destroy a hundred
families, in order that the rest, terrified by their example, may again
become humanised, and submit to the laws. The furies themselves could
not do half the injury to these people which those now do to whom the
Bishop has been obliged to intrust the sword of justice and the power of
vengeance.

"Doctor Robertus, the renowned champion of freedom, the man after thine
own heart, was from his earliest youth an enemy to the Minister, whom he
hated on account of his talents. Envy and jealousy caused his
independence of spirit; and if he had been in the situation of the other,
he would have adopted with pleasure the most cruel principles of
despotism, for which his wild and ferocious heart was only formed. The
honest man was the Minister; Robertus was a monster, who would have set
the whole world in a blaze, and has done it partly, in order to satisfy
his boundless ambition. Thou didst oblige me to rescue him, and to
furnish him with a large sum of money. He made such good use of his
freedom, his gold, and the enthusiasm which his miraculous escape had
caused among the people, that he soon succeeded in stirring up a dreadful
rebellion. He armed the peasants; they murdered the nobility, and
desolated the whole land. The noble Minister fell a victim to his
revenge; and Robertus, the friend of liberty, the champion of the
oppressed, is the author of the calamitous war of the peasants, which by
degrees will spread over the whole of Germany, and will ravage it.
Murders, assassinations, robberies, and sacrilege are now committed with
impunity; and thy noble hero stands at the head of a furious rabble, and
threatens to make Germany the cemetery of the human race. Satan himself
could not have laboured more effectually for the destruction of mankind,
than thou didst when I was forced by thee to rescue this madman from the
stroke of justice.

"Let us now return to the court of the German prince, where thou so
audaciously didst make thyself the avenger of virtue and oppressed
innocence. That prince and his favourite affected virtues which they did
not possess; but their actions contributed to the good of the people,
because both had sense enough t