imates),
that poor men might be governed by a wise good Duke, in the time coming.
The Kaiser would have got the Duchies otherwise.

Nay the Kaiser, in spite of his preliminary assent, proved extortionate
to George in this matter; and exacted heavy sums for the actual
possession of Oppeln and Ratibor. George, going so zealously ahead in
Protestant affairs, grew less and less a favorite with Kaisers. But
so, at any rate, on peaceable unquestionable grounds, grounds valid as
Imperial Law and ready money, George is at last Lord of these two little
Countries, in the plain of South-Silesia, as of Jagerndorf among the
Mountains hard by. George has and holds the Duchy of Jagerndorf, with
these appendages (Jagerndorf since 1524, Ratibor and Oppeln since some
years later); and lives constantly, or at the due intervals, in his own
strong Mountain-Castle of Jagerndorf there,--we have no doubt, to the
marked benefit of good men in those parts. Hereby has Jagerndorf joined
itself to the Brandenburg Territories: and the reader can note the
circumstance, for it will prove memorable one day.

In the business of the Reformation, Margraf George was very noble.
A simple-hearted, truth-loving, modestly valiant man; rising
unconsciously, in that great element, into the heroic figure. "George
the Pious (DER FROMME)," "George the Confessor (BEKENNER)," were
the names he got from his countrymen. Once this business had become
practical, George interfered a little more in the Culmbach Government;
his brother Casimir, who likewise had Reformation tendencies, rather
hanging back in comparison to George.

In 1525 the Town-populations, in the Culmbach region, big Nurnberg in
the van, had gone quite ahead in the new Doctrine; and were becoming
irrepressibly impatient to clear out the old mendacities, and have the
Gospel preached freely to them. This was a questionable step; feasible
perhaps for a great Elector of Saxony;--but for a Margraf of Anspach?
George had come home from Jagerndorf, some three hundred miles away, to
look into it for himself; found it, what with darkness all round, what
with precipices menacing on both hands, and zealous, inconsiderate
Town-populations threatening to take the bit between their teeth, a
frightfully intricate thing. George mounted his horse, one day this
year, day not dated farther, and "with only six attendants" privately
rode off, another two hundred miles, a good three days' ride, to
Wittenberg; and alighted