on, down to the little Friedrich now
born;--Friedrich the old Grandfather, First KING, was the Twelfth
KURFURST.

We have to say, they followed generally in their Ancestors' steps, and
had success of the like kind, more or less; Hohenzollerns all of them,
by character and behavior as well as by descent. No lack of quiet
energy, of thrift, sound sense. There was likewise solid fair-play in
general, no founding of yourself on ground that will not carry;--and
there was instant, gentle but inexorable, crushing of mutiny, if it
showed itself; which, after the Second Elector, or at most the Third, it
had altogether ceased to do. Young Friedrich II., upon whom those
Berlin Burghers had tried to close their gates, till he should sign some
"Capitulation" to their mind, got from them, and not quite in ill-humor,
that name IRONTEETH:--"Not the least a Nose-of-wax, this one! No use
trying here, then!"--which, with the humor attached to it, is itself
symbolical of Friedrich and these Hohenzollern Sovereigns. Albert, his
Brother, had plenty of fighting in his time: but it was in the Nurnberg
and other distant regions; no fighting, or hardly any, needed in
Brandenburg henceforth.

With Nurnberg, and the Ex-Burggrafship there, now when a new generation
began to tug at the loose clauses of that Bargain with Friedrich I., and
all Free-Towns were going high upon their privileges, Albert had at one
time much trouble, and at length actual furious War;--other Free-Towns
countenancing and assisting Nurnberg in the affair; numerous petty
Princes, feudal Lords of the vicinity, doing the like by Albert. Twenty
years ago, all this; and it did not last, so furious was it. "Eight
victories," they count on Albert's part,--furious successful skirmishes,
call them;--in one of which, I remember, Albert plunged in alone,
his Ritters being rather shy; and laid about him hugely, hanging by
a standard he had taken, till his life was nearly beaten out. [1449
(Rentsch, p. 399).] Eight victories; and also one defeat, wherein Albert
got captured, and had to ransom himself. The captor was one Kunz of
Kauffungen, the Nurnberg hired General at the time: a man known to some
readers for his Stealing of the Saxon Princes (PRINZENRAUB, they call
it); a feat which cost Kunz his head. [Carlyle's _Miscellanies_ (London,
1869), vi. ? PRINZENRAUB.] Albert, however, prevailed in the end, as he
was apt to do; and got his Nurnbergers fixed to clauses satisfactory to
him.