"Sometimes a bold rope-dancer is to be seen, who walks on the rope, till at last he breaks his leg, or falls headlong; or a daring Turkish juggler who lies on the ground, and allows himself to be struck on the chest by a great hammer, as if he were an anvil; or by a jerk, tears up a big pile which has been driven by force into the ground, whereby he obtains a good sum for his journey to Mecca. "Sometimes a baptized Jew makes his appearance, who bawls and cries out, till at length he collects a few people, when he begins to preach about his conversion; whereby one comes to this conclusion, that he has become a crafty vagrant instead of a pious Christian. "In short there is no market-place, either in village or town, where some of these fellows are not to be found, who either perform divers facetious juggling tricks, or sell various drugs. "These are the tricks of charlatans, strollers, and jugglers, and other idle people, whereby they get on in the world." Here ends the narrative of Garzoni. Numberless light-footed people also of the same class thronged into the German market towns. But besides the old traders and jugglers, a new class of strollers had come into Germany, harmless people of far higher interest for these days, the wandering comedians. The first players that made a profession of their performances came to Germany from England or the Netherlands, towards the end of the sixteenth century. They were still accompanied with rope dancers, jumpers, fencers, and horsebreakers; they still continued to furnish the courts of princes and the market-places of great cities with clowns and the favourite figure of jack-puddings, and soon after, the French "Jean Posset," on bad boarded platforms still continued to excite the uproarious laughter of the easily amused multitude. Shortly after, the popular masques of the Italian theatre became familiar in the south of Germany and on the Rhine. At the same time that the regular circulation of newspapers commenced, the people received the rough beginnings of art; the representation of human character and the secret emotions of restless souls by the play of countenance, gestures, and the deceptive illusion of action. It is remarkable also, that almost precisely at the same period, the first entertaining novels were written for the people. And these spontaneously invented pictures of real life had reference to the strolling people; for the adventures of vagrants, disbanded soldiers, and in short all those who had travelled in foreign countries, and had seen there an abundance of marvels, and undergone the most terrible dangers with almost invulnerable bodies, were the heroes of these imperfect creations of art. Shortly after the war, Christoph von Grimmelshausen wrote 'Simplicissimus,' 'Springinsfeld,' 'Landstörzerin Courage,' and the 'Wonderful Vogelnest,' the heroes of which are gathered from strollers; these were followed by a flood of novels describing the lives of rogues and of adventurers.