ne of the worst kaisers and the least
victorious on record. He would attend to nothing in the Reich; "the Prag
white beer, and girls" of various complexion, being much preferable, as
he was heard to say. He had to fling his poor Queen's Confessor into the
river Moldau--Johann of Nepomuk, Saint so called, if he is not a fable
altogether; whose Statue stands on Bridges ever since, in those parts.
Wenzel's Bohemians revolted against him; put him in jail; and he broke
prison, a boatman's daughter helping him out, with adventures. His
Germans were disgusted with him; deposed him from the kaisership; chose
Rupert of the Pfalz; and then, after Rupert's death, chose Wenzel's own
brother Sigismund in his stead--left Wenzel to jumble about in his
native Bohemian element, as king there, for nineteen years longer, still
breaking pots to a ruinous extent.

He ended by apoplexy, or sudden spasm of the heart; terrible Ziska,[75]
as it were, killing him at second hand. For Ziska, stout and furious,
blind of one eye and at last of both, a kind of human rhinoceros driven
mad, had risen out of the ashes of murdered Huss, and other bad papistic
doings, in the interim; and was tearing up the world at a huge rate.
Rhinoceros Ziska was on the Weissenberg, or a still nearer hill of Prag
since called Ziska-berg (Ziska Hill); and none durst whisper of it to
the King. A servant waiting at dinner inadvertently let slip the word:
"Ziska there? Deny it, slave!" cried Wenzel, frantic. Slave durst not
deny. Wenzel drew his sword to run at him, but fell down dead: that was
the last pot broken by Wenzel. The hapless royal ex-imperial phantasm
self-broken in this manner. Poor soul, he came to the kaisership too
early; was a thin violent creature, sensible to the charms and horrors
of created objects; and had terrible rhinoceros ziskas and unruly horned
cattle to drive. He was one of the worst kaisers ever known--could have
done Opera Singing much better--and a sad sight to Bohemia. Let us leave
him there: he was never actual Elector of Brandenburg, having given it
up in time; never did any ill to that poor country.

The real Kurfuerst of Brandenburg all this while was Sigismund, Wenzel's
next brother, under tutelage of cousin Jobst or otherwise--a real and
yet imaginary, for he never himself governed, but always had Jobst of
Maehren or some other in his place there. Sigismund was to have married a
daughter of Burggraf Friedrich V;[76] and he was himself,