Men even of uncommon strength and intelligence seldom succeeded in extricating themselves from the proscribed boundaries by which their life was fenced in. Ever greater became the chasm which separated them from the smaller portion of the nation, who, by their perukes, bagwigs, and pigtails, showed from afar that they belonged to a privileged class. Up to the end of the seventeenth century these polished classes seldom entertained a friendly feeling towards the peasant; on all sides were to be heard complaints of his obduracy, dishonesty, and coarseness. At no period was the suffering portion of the people so harshly judged as in that, in which a spiritless orthodoxy embittered the souls of those who had to preach the gospel of love. None were more eager than the theologians in complaining of the worthlessness of the country people, among whom they had to live; they always heard hell-hounds howling round the huts of the villeins; their whole conception of life was, indeed, dark, pedantic, and joyless. A well-known little book, from the native district of Christopher von Grimmelshausen, is especially characteristic. This book, entitled "Des Bauerstands Lasterprob"--the exposure of the vices of the peasant class[30]--never ceased to point out from the deeds of the villagers, that the lives of the peasantry, from the village justice to the goose-herd, were worthless and godless; that they were in the habit of representing themselves as poor and miserable, and of complaining on all occasions; that they were rude and overbearing to those whom they did not fear; that they considered none as their friends, and ungratefully deceived their benefactors. This book is much more cruel than "The Lexicon of Deceit," by the hypochondriacal Coburger Hoenn, which some centuries later analysed the impositions of all classes,--and amongst others, those of the peasants,--alphabetically, morosely, and with apt references.