If in his shatterbrained character there was anything out of the common way, it was his being entirely devoid of all one is accustomed to consider as honourable and conscientious. He had not the frivolity of his courtiers who cast off all reflection, but he entirely lacked all moral feeling. Being a prince, this recklessness for a long time answered, for with a pleasing facility he slipped out of all difficulties, and with a smile or dignified surprise, made his way out of positions that would have brought burning blushes to the cheeks of most others. It was indifferent to him how he obtained money; when in distress he wrote begging letters to all the world, even to the Romish Legate, though himself a Protestant; from every court and city which he visited, and where according to the custom of those times he was entertained, he endeavoured to borrow money. Generally the host, taken by surprise, came to terms with Schweinichen, and instead of the loan, a small travelling fee was given, with which the Prince was content. He had a wife, an insignificant woman, whom he was sometimes compelled to take with him; she had also to make shift and contract debts like him, and after having forced herself on the hospitality of the rich Bohemian nobles, she sought for loans through Schweinichen, and received their courtly refusals with princely demeanour. All this would be simply contemptible if there was not something original in it, as Duke Heinrich, in spite of all, had a strong feeling of the princely dignity which he so often disgraced, and was as far as outward appearance was concerned a distinguished man. Not only with his Schweinichen, but also in the courts of foreign princes, indeed even in social intercourse with the Emperor, he was according to the ideas of those times an agreeable companion, well skilled in knightly pursuits, always good humoured, amused with every joke made by others, quick at repartee, and in serious things he appeared really eloquent. In some matters also he showed in his actions traces of a manly understanding. However unseemly his tyrannical conduct, as Duke, towards his States, however strange his open resistance to the Imperial power, and however childish his hope of becoming elective King of Poland, yet the foundation of all this was the abiding feeling that his noble origin gave him the right to aspire to the highest position. He was always engrossed with political interests and plans. Nothing ever prospered to him, for he was unstable, reckless, and not to be trusted, but his aims were always great, either a king's throne or a field-marshal's staff. It was this, and not his drunken follies, that cast him down from his throne, and at last into the grave. On one other point he was steadfast,--he was a Protestant; although he did not hesitate a moment to demand loans of his Catholic opponents in the most shameless way; yet when the Papal Legate promised him a considerable revenue, and indeed his