If these particulars give only a very imperfect picture of the splendour, the opulence, and the independence which were developed in these festivals by the German cities in ancient times, yet they will succeed in making the reader feel, that though we have gained much in comparison with those times, we have also lost something. Only very lately it would have appeared hazardous to the greatest city communities to arrange festivals which, according to our rate of money, would cost perhaps more than fifty thousand thalers; not to do honour to the visit of some sovereign, but for the pleasure of German fellow-citizens, and which would last three or even five weeks, and commit many hundreds, or even thousands of guests during this period to the friendly hospitality, partly of individuals and partly of the city community. It is true that time has become more valuable to us, life is enjoyed more rapidly, and we compress into days what would have employed our ancestors for weeks. It is true that modern men seek recreation in summer in ways which were almost unknown three centuries ago. They isolate themselves from the bustle and hard daily labour of the world among mountain woods and alpine valleys; whilst our ancestors, on the contrary, sought pleasure and refreshment in large societies of men, and left the narrow boundaries of their walls,--the guild room and the council hall,--for those great re-unions in which they could gain honour and prizes by their own exertions. But it must not be forgotten that it was just in those last two centuries in which the great civic festivals became impossible, that many general interests were developed in German citizen life, which, however unsatisfactory they may be, form an immeasurable step in advance of the olden time. There is also a fundamental difference in culture which distinguishes us from our ancestors; but this difference does not rest on the necessary progress of a later race. We feel that the old brotherhood of cities and districts had something noble in it, in which our life is very deficient. The joyful self-assertion of man in social intercourse with others, the facility with which common usages unite together hundreds and indeed thousands, and, above all, the imposing vigour with which cities asserted their position, all this has been too long wanting to us. If it was seldom granted to our forefathers to feel, on the great occasions of life, the unity of German interests in Church and State, and through a common action and great triumph to ennoble the life of every individual, yet they knew at least how to open, by their fellowship, a domain in which expression was given to the German nature, to human relations and to community of spirit.