reprinted the clever little book, after one of the oldest impressions. To the order of beggars belong also the travelling scholars, who, as treasure diggers and exorcists, made successful attacks on the savings of the peasants and on the provisions in their chimneys. "They desired to become priests," then they came from Rome with shaven crowns and collected for a surplice; or they were necromancers, then they wore a yellow train to their coats and came from the Frau Venusberg; when they entered a house they exclaimed, "Here comes a travelling scholar, a master of seven liberal sciences, an exorciser of the devil, and from hail storms, fire, and monsters;" and thereupon they made "experiments." Together with them came disbanded Landsknechte, often associated with the dark race of outlaws, who worked with armed hand against the life and property of the resident inhabitants. Throughout the whole of the middle ages it was impossible to eradicate the robbers. After the time of Luther they became incendiaries, more particularly from 1540 to 1542. A foreign rabble appeared suddenly in middle Germany, especially in the domains of the Protestant chiefs, the Elector of Saxony and Landgrave of Hesse. They burned Cassel, Nordheim, Göttingen, Goslor, Brunswick, and Magdeburg. Eimbech was burned to the ground with three hundred and fifty men, and a portion of Nordhausen; villages and barns were everywhere set on fire; bold incendiary letters stirred up the people, and at last also the princes. The report became general that the Roman Catholic party had hired more than three hundred incendiaries, and the Pope, Paul III., had counselled Duke Henry the younger, of Brunswick, to send the rabble to Saxony and Hesse. Undoubtedly much wickedness was laid to the credit of the unscrupulous Duke; but it was then the interest of Pope Paul III. to treat the Protestants with forbearance, for earnest endeavours were being made on both sides for a great reconciliation, and preparation was made for it at Rome, by sending the Cardinal Contarini to the great religious conference at Ratisbon. The terror, however, and anger of the Germans was great and enduring. Everywhere the incendiaries were tracked, everywhere their traces were found, crowds of rabble were imprisoned, tried for their lives, and executed. Luther publicly denounced Duke Henry as guilty of these reckless outrages; the Elector and Landgrave accused him of incendiarism at the Diet before the Emperor; and in vain did he, in his most vehement manner, defend himself and his adherents. It is true that his guilt was pronounced by the Emperor as unproved; but then he was desirous, above all, of internal peace and help against the Turks. In the public opinion, however, the stain on the prince's reputation remained. It is impossible to discover how far the strollers of that time were the guilty parties. The depositions of those arrested are inaccurately given, and it cannot be decided how much of it was