What would Germany have been without her small courts? Without a Duke Charles Augustus of Weimar, there would probably have been no Wieland, no Herder, no Goethe, and no Schiller. It is not only plants that want sunshine, genius also requires light and warmth to bring it out, and the refining influence of a small court was nowhere so necessary as during the period of storm and stress in Germany. It cannot be denied that some of these small courts were hotbeds of corruption of every kind. I remember how in my younger days the small Duchy of Anhalt-Cöthen, for instance, suffered extremely from maladministration during the reign of the last Duke, who died without heirs, and had no scruples in impoverishing the country, and suppressing all opposition, however legitimate. He was a sovereign by divine rights, as much as the King of Prussia, and with the assistance of his ministers he could alienate and sell whatever he liked. He actually established a public gambling house on the railway station at Cöthen. In the third Duchy of Anhalt, that of Anhalt-Bernburg, the reigning Duke was for a time almost out of his mind, but no one had the power to restrain or to remove him. The ministers did all they could to prevent any public scandal, but it was not easy to prevent, if not a revolution—that would have been difficult on so small a scale—at least a complaint to the German Diet, and that might have become serious. Many were the stories told of the poor Duke and believed by the people. Like all court stories they went on growing and growing, and they were repeated “on the highest authority.” One day, it was said, the Duke of Bernburg had been reading the history of Napoleon, how he had decorated a sentinel, and made him an officer on the field of battle. The Duke, so we are told, carried away by his enthusiasm, rushed out of his room, embraced the sentinel, fastened some medal on his breast and said: “Thou art a captain.” The soldier, not losing his presence of mind, said to the Duke: “I thank your Serene Highness, but would you please give it me in writing?” The Duke did, and nothing remained for his ministers but to grant to the private the title and the pension of a captain, and to let him wear the small medal which the Duke had given him. I confess I could never come face to face with the fortunate captain or find out his whereabouts. Still to doubt the truth of the story would have been considered the extreme of historical scepticism. Another time the Duke’s enthusiasm was fired by reading an account of a wild-boar hunt in the neighbouring duchy of Anhalt-Dessau, which had been attended by a number of princes from all parts of Germany. He summoned his Prime Minister and told him, “I must have wild boars in my forests. Turn out a herd of pigs, they will do quite as well.” This command too had to be obeyed, and the extraordinary part of it was that in a few years these tame pigs had completely reverted to