"I knew when the Frankfort fair was to take place, when the Nurembergers were to go on foot from Wuerzburg to Frankfort by the Spessart. I made a reconnaissance and fell upon five or six; amongst them there was a merchant whom I attacked for the third time, having in half a year, twice made him prisoner and once deprived him of property; the others were mere bale packers of Nuremberg: I made semblance as if I would cut off their heads and hands, though I was not in earnest; but they were obliged to kneel down and lay their heads upon a block; I then gave one of them a kick behind, and a box on the ear to the others: this was the way I punished them, and then let them go their way. The merchant whom I had so frequently waylaid crossed himself and said: 'I should sooner have thought that the heavens would fall in than that you should have waylaid me to-day, for only some days ago, about a hundred of our merchants were standing in the market-place of Nuremberg, the talk turned upon you, and I heard that you were then in the forests at Hagenschiess waylaying and seizing property.' I myself wondered that in so short a time the rumour of my riding hither and thither should have reached Nuremberg. Soon after, his Imperial Majesty took the matter in hand, and arranged it at Wuerzburg."--Thus far Goetz. Schaertlin von Burtenbach. Sebastian Schaertlin does not exactly belong to the same class. He was not of noble origin, and had to thank his military talents for his knighthood. He was born in the year 1498, and studied arms under Fronsperg. From 1518 to 1557 he was actively employed in almost all the military affairs of Germany, in the service of the Emperor, and in that of the city of Augsburg. For a time also he served in the French army, as on account of his participation in the Smalkaldic war he had been obliged to leave Germany. He had more than once commanded large armies, and was in great repute as a bold and experienced general; he is an interesting contrast to Goetz. The one the noble cavalier, the other the citizen Landsknechte leader; Goetz the jovial companion-at-arms, Schaertlin the practical man of business. The lives of both were full of adventures and not free from inexcusable deeds: both died at a great age; but Goetz dissipated his time and property in plundering expeditions and knightly deeds, while Schaertlin helped to decide the fate of Germany. Goetz understood so little his own times and his interest, that he, the aristocrat, allowed himself to be made use of by the democratic peasants as a man of straw; Schaertlin understood his own time so well, that after the unfortunate Smalkaldic war he withdrew into Switzerland a rich man, and a few years afterwards was reinstated triumphantly in all his honours. Goetz had all his life a strong hankering after the merchant's gold, yet after all his daring plundering expeditions had but little in his coffers; Schaertlin made