ion, he finds it
more advantageous to allow himself to be unhorsed, than to contend
manfully.

The condition of his peasantry is wretched: they have sunk from freemen
to slaves; the rent they have to pay in labour, corn, and money,
swallows up their earnings, yet he benefits little by it. The roads
being bad and unsafe, it is impossible to export his produce: he is
just able to keep himself and his household, for his income is small;
everything has become dear; the new gold which has been brought to
Europe from America is amassed in the great commercial towns, and is of
little advantage to him, and he is unable to maintain the state
suitable to his position.

He holds obstinately to all he considers his right, and supports or
resists his feudal lord according to his personal advantage;
occasionally he follows him to the Imperial Diet. But in the Provincial
States, he eagerly resists the impost of new taxes; he has no real love
of his country, and only feels himself German in opposition to Italians
and Spaniards, whom he hates; but looks with a selfish interest on
France, whose King burns cursed Calvinists and engages German Lutherans
at high salaries. The province in which he lives has no political
unity; the sovereignty of his feudal lord is no longer a firm edifice,
and his attachment is therefore only occasional. His egotism alone is
firm and lasting, a miserable hateful egotism, which has scarce power
to excite him to deeds of daring, not even to bind him to others of his
own class. Rarely does the feeling of his own social position ennoble
his conversation or actions; his education and knowledge of the world
are not greater than those of a horsedealer of the present day.

A century has passed, it is the year 1659--ten years since the
conclusion of the great German war. The walls of the old castles have
been shattered, foreign soldiers have encamped within them, whose fires
have blackened the ruins, and whose fury has emptied the granaries and
destroyed all the household goods. The squire has now erected a new
building with the stones of the old one; it is a bare house, with thick
walls, and without ornament; the windows look on a miserable village,
which is only partly built, and on a field which, for the first time
for many years, is prepared for cultivation; the flock of sheep has
been replenished, but there are no horses, and the peasants have
learned to plough with oxen. The owner of the house has no longer