History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 02Carlyle, Thomas
History
History of Friedrich II of Prussia — Volume 02
Carlyle, Thomas
Frederick II, King of Prussia, 1712-1786; Prussia (Germany) -- History -- Frederick II, 1740-1786; Social problems
The Wendish Princes had a taste for German wives; in which just taste
the Albert genealogy was extremely willing to indulge them. Affinities
produce inheritances; by proper marriage-contracts you can settle on
what side the most contingent inheritance shall at length fall. Dim but
pretty certain lies a time coming when the Wendish Princes also shall
have effaced themselves; and all shall be German-Brandenburgish, not
Wendish any more.--The actual Inhabitants of Brandenburg, therefore,
are either come of Dutch Bog-farmers, or are simple Lower SAXONS
("Anglo-Saxon," if you like that better), PLATT-TEUTSCH of the common
type; an unexceptionable breed of people. Streaks of Wendish population,
extruded gradually into the remoter quagmires, and more inaccessible,
less valuable sedgy moors and sea-strands, are scattered about;
Mecklenburg, which still subsists separately after a sort, is reckoned
peculiarly Wendish. In Mecklenburg, Pommern, Pommerellen (Little
Pomerania), are still to be seen physiognomies of a Wendish or Vandalic
type (more of cheek than there ought to be, and less of brow; otherwise
good enough physiognomies of their kind): but the general mass, tempered
with such admixtures, is of the Platt-Deutsch, Saxon or even Anglish
character we are familiar with here at home. A patient stout people;
meaning considerable things, and very incapable of speaking what it
means.
Albert was a fine tall figure himself; DER SCHONE, "Albert the
Handsome," was his name as often as "Albert the Bear." That latter
epithet he got, not from his looks or qualities, but merely from his
heraldic cognizance: a Bear on his shield. As was then the mode of
names; surnames being scant, and not yet fixedly in existence. Thus too
his contemporaries, Henry THE LION of Saxony and Welfdom, William THE
LION of Scotland, were not, either of them, specially leonine men: nor
had the PLANTAGENETS, or Geoffrey of Anjou, any connection with the
PLANT of BROOM, except wearing a twig of it in their caps on occasion.
Men are glad to get some designation for a grand Albert they are often
speaking of, which shall distinguish him from the many small ones.
Albert "the Bear, DER BAR," will do as well as another.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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