, and taking that
for his trouble. All turns, in substance, on this latter question! If,
again, the Ritterdom was not dead--?

And truly it struggled as hard as Partridge the Almanac-maker to rebut
that fatal accusation; complained (Teutschmeister and German-Papist part
of it) loudly at the Diets; got Albert and his consorts put to the Ban
(GEACHTET), fiercely menaced by the Kaiser Karl V. But nothing came of
all that; nothing but noise. Albert maintained his point; Kaiser Karl
always found his hands full otherwise, and had nothing but stamped
parchments and menaces to fire off at Albert. Teutsch Ritterdom,
the Popish part of it, did enjoy its valuable bailliwicks, and very
considerable rents in various quarters of Germany and Europe, having
lost only Preussen; and walked about, for three centuries more, with
money in its pocket, and a solemn white gown with black cross on its
back,--the most opulent Social Club in existence, and an excellent
place for bestowing younger sons of sixteen quarters. But it was, and
continued through so many centuries, in every essential respect, a
solemn Hypocrisy; a functionless merely eating Phantasm, of the nature
of goblin, hungry ghost or ghoul (of which kind there are many);--till
Napoleon finally ordered it to vanish; its time, even as Phantasm, being
come.

Albert, I can conjecture, had his own difficulties as Regent in
Preussen. [1525-1568.] Protestant Theology, to make matters worse
for him, had split itself furiously into 'DOXIES; and there was an
OSIANDERISM (Osiander being the Duke's chaplain), much flamed upon by
the more orthodox ISM. "Foreigners," too, German-Anspach and other, were
ill seen by the native gentlemen; yet sometimes got encouragement. One
Funccius, a shining Nurnberg immigrant there, son-in-law of Osiander,
who from Theology got into Politics, had at last (1564) to be
beheaded,--old Duke Albert himself "bitterly weeping" about him; for it
was none of Albert's doing. Probably his new allodial Ritter gentlemen
were not the most submiss, when made hereditary? We can only hope the
Duke was a Hohenzollern, and not quite unequal to his task in this
respect. A man with high bald brow; magnificent spade-beard; air
much-pondering, almost gaunt,--gaunt kind of eyes especially, and a
slight cast in them, which adds to his severity of aspect. He kept his
possession well, every inch of it; and left all safe at his decease
in 1568. His age was then near eighty. It was the