His was an unprofitable life, but it well deserves the sympathy of a later generation. A strong passion disturbed his days up to his last hours. Mixed with a great love, a stream of gall penetrated into his heart, flowing unceasingly; his time, his money and all his talents were spent in the most sorrowful of all struggles--in family disputes. His brilliant youth gave great promise, yet how profitless to others, nay to himself, was his whole manhood. In his old age he dwelt in a foreign city, divided between his past and his new domestic life, to which he could never get thoroughly accustomed. His spirit, once so lively and active, and his unbending will, were so engrossed with his personal affairs, that when he became the real ruler of his country he no longer took an interest in doing his duty. It was not unnatural that Anthony Ulrich should, from his own experience, entertain a repugnance to the pretensions of the lower nobility at court, and it was quite in accordance with his character, to display his hatred when opportunities offered. This he did shortly after the death of his first wife, to the bereaved court at Meiningen. In the royal palace at Meiningen the _Frau Landjägermeisterin_, (wife of the Grand Master of the chase), Christiane Auguste von Gleichen held the highest rank. Among the other ladies who had a right to be there, was a Fran von Pfaffenrath, born Countess Solms, but yet only the wife of a councillor, who had only just been ennobled, and to whom she had been married in a not very regular way, for her husband had been tutor in her parents' house: she had eloped with him, and had after many troubles accomplished a reconciliation with her mother, and obtained a diploma of nobility for her husband. Now Duke Anthony Ulrich, who was residing at Frankfort, protected her, because, as the court whispered, her sister had the advantage of being in the good graces of the old gentleman. Naturally, she ought only to have ranked according to the patent of her husband, but alas! she raised pretensions because she was of high nobility. When therefore in October 1746, the doors of the dining-room were to be opened, and the page was standing ready to repeat grace, the Master-of-the-Horse entered and said to the _Frau Landjägermeisterin_: "His most Serene Highness has commanded that the Frau von Pfaffenrath shall take rank before all other ladies." Frau von Gleichen answered that she would never consent to that, but the Frau von Pfaffenrath had placed herself favourably and took the precedence of the _Frau Landjägermeisterin_ before she could prevent it. Yet this determined lady was far from submitting tamely. She hastened round the table to the Duke's cabinet minister, and declared to him, as became a lady of character after such an insult: "If _Frau von_ Pfaffenrath again goes before me to table, I will pull her back even to the sacrifice of her hooped gown, and will say a few words which will be very disagreeable to