He comes from Anspach originally; and has kindred Seckendorfs in office there, old Ritters in that Country. He inherited a handsome castle and estate, Meuselwitz, near Altenburg in the Thuringen region, from that Uncle, Ernst of Saxe-Gotha's man, whom we spoke of; and has otherwise gained wealth; all which he holds like a vice. Once, at Meuselwitz, they say, he and some young secretary, of a smartish turn, sat working or conversing, in a large room with only one candle to illuminate it: the secretary, snuffing the candle, snuffed it out: "Pshaw," said Seckendorf impatiently, "where did you learn to handle snuffers?" "Excellenz, in a place where there were two lights kept!" replied the other. [_ Sechendorje Leben_ (already cited), i. 4.]--For the rest, he has a good old Wife at Meuselwitz, who is now old, and had never any children; who loves him much, and is much loved by him, it would appear: this is really the best fact I ever knew of him,--poor bankrupt creature; gone all to spiritual rheumatism, to strict orthodoxy, with unlimited mendacity; and avarice as the general outcome! Stiff-backed, close-fisted strength, all grown wooden or stony; yet some little well of human Sympathy does lie far in the interior: one wishes, after all (since he could not be got hanged in time for us), good days to his poor old Wife and him! He both lisps and snuffles, as was mentioned; writes cunningly acres of despatches to Prince Eugene; never swears, though a military man, except on great occasions one oath, JARNI-BLEU,--which is perhaps some flash-note version of CHAIR-DE-DIEU, like PARBLEU, 'Zounds and the rest of them, which the Devil cannot prosecute you for; whereby an economic man has the pleasure of swearing on cheap terms. Herr Pollnitz's account of Seckendorf is unusually emphatic; babbling Pollnitz rises into a strain of pulpit eloquence, inspired by indignation, on this topic: "He affected German downrightness, to which he was a stranger; and followed, under a deceitful show of piety, all the principles of Machiavel. With the most sordid love of money he combined boorish manners. Lies [of the distilled kind chiefly] had so become a habit with him, that he had altogether lost notion of employing truth in speech. It was the soul of a usurer, inhabiting now the body of a war-captain, now transmigrating into that of a huckster. False oaths, and the abominablest basenesses, cost him nothing, so his object might be reached. He was miserly with his own, but lavish with his Master's money; daily he gave most striking proofs of both these habitudes. And this was the man whom we saw, for a space of time, at the head of the Kaiser's Armies, and at the helm of the State and of the German Empire," [Pollnitz, ii. 238.]--having done the Prussian affair so well.