Neisse is a Nest of Priests (PFAFFEN-NEST), says Friedrich once; which came in this way. About 600 years ago, an ill-conditioned Heir-Apparent of the Liegnitz Sovereign to whom it then belonged, quarrelled with his Father, quarrelled slightly with the Universe; and, after moping about for some time, went into the Church. Having Neisse for an apanage already his own, he gave it to the Bishop of Breslau; whose, in spite of the old Father's protestings, it continued, and continues. Bishops of Breslau are made very grand by it; Bishops of Breslau have had their own difficulties here. Thus once (in our Perkin-Warbeck time, A.D. 1497), a Duke of Oppeln, sitting in some Official Conclave or meeting of magnates here,--zealous for country privilege, and feeling himself insufferably put upon,--started up, openly defiant of Official men; glaring wrathfully into Duke Casimir of Teschen (Bohemian-Austrian Captain of Silesia), and into the Bishop of Breslau himself; nay at last, flashed out his sword upon those sublime dignitaries. For which, by and by, he had to lay his head on the block, in the great square here; and died penitent, we hope. This place, my Dryasdust informs me, had many accidents by floodage and by fire; was seized and re-seized in the Thirty-Years War especially, at a great rate: Saxon Arnheim, Austrian Holk, Swedish Torstenson; no end to the battering and burning poor Neisse had, to the big ransoms "in new Reichs-thalers and 300 casks of wine." But it always rebuilt itself, and began business again. How happy when it could get under some effectual Protector, of the Liegnitz line, of the Austrian-Bohemian line, and this or the other battering, just suffered, was to be the last for some time!--Here again is a battering coming on it; the first of a series that are now imminent. The reader is requested to look at Neisse; for besides the Tokay wine, there will things arrive there.--Neisse River, let us again mention, is one of four bearing that name, and all belonging to the Oder:--could not they be labelled, then, or NUMBERED, in some way? This Neisse, which we could call Neisse the FIRST (and which careful readers may as well make acquaintance with on their Map, where too they will find Neisse the SECOND, "the WUTHENDE or Roaring Neisse," and two others which concern us less), rises in the "Western Snow-Mountains (SCHNEEGEBIRGE)," Southwestern or Glatz district of the Giant Mountains; drains Glatz County and grows big there; washes the Town of Glatz; then eastward by Ottmachau, by Neisse Town; whence turning rather abruptly north or northeast, it gets into the Oder not far south of Brieg.