Undoubtedly, in the time of weakness since 1648, a most comfortable life was led by the wealthy scion of an old family, who possessed large property, and was protected by old alliances with influential persons and rulers. His sons gained profitable court appointments, or high military places; and his daughters, who were well dowered, increased the circle of his influential "friends." The landed proprietor himself had served in the army, had travelled to France or Holland, and brought with him from thence a number of curiosities; arms and painted articles from the Eastern nations, a hollow ostrich-egg, polished shells, artistically carved cherry-stones, and painted pottery, or marble limbs that had been dug up in Italy. He had, perhaps, somewhere favoured a learned man with his acquaintance, and received from time to time a ponderous legal treatise, or a volume of poems, with a respectful letter. He might have visited in his travels the courts of Anhalt or Weimar, and been created, by letters patent, a poet or author; he was member of the _Frucht-bringende Gesellschaft_[41] (the Fruit-Producing Society), had a beautiful medal attached to a silk ribbon, on which his herb, sage or, mint--or, if he had been sarcastic at court--a radish, was represented; he bore the surname of "Scarifier," and comforted himself with the motto--"Sharp and Nutritious;"[42] and he sometimes wrote letters on the improvement of the German mother tongue, unfortunately with many French phrases. For his own information he, with other cavaliers of education, took in, at considerable cost, a written newspaper, which a well-instructed man in the capital secretly sent to good customers; for it was revolting to him to read the common, superficial scribbling of the printed newspapers. He spoke some French, perhaps also Italian; and if he had been at a University, which did not frequently happen, he might be able to recite a Latin lucubration. In this case he was probably commissary of the ruler of the country, a dignitary of his province; then he had business journeys, and occasionally negotiations, and he managed, to the best of his power, what was intrusted to him, with the help of his secretaries. He was courteous, even to those who were beneath him, and was on good terms with the citizens. He looked down upon the people with confident self-complacency; he was, in fact, high bred, and knew right well that his nobility did not rest on many titles, nor on the knightly ensigns on his escutcheon; and he smiled at the Lions, Bears, Turks'-heads, and Wild men, which were painted on the coats of arms, and bestowed by the heralds' office at Vienna. He regarded with contempt the French nobility, among whom, through Paris merchants and Italian adventurers, too much foreign blood had been intermingled; on the Hungarians, who complacently allowed their nobility to be conferred for a bow and a chancery fee by the Palatine; on the Danes, whose noblemen had a