more like a fool, than when he entered.[J] As a common mountebank at court entertainments, we have one sample of the quality of Kunz, at the marriage at Augsburg, in 1518, of the Margrave Casimir of Brandenburg with the Bavarian Princess Susanna. At the festivities which followed the match, Kunz was seated on the edge of a reservoir, with a preaching monk, and two or three others, witnessing a foot-race, got up to gratify the more illustrious personages. At the shout which rose on the race being won, the jester fell backwards into the reservoir, as if by accident, dragging with him the monk, whom he managed to duck soundly, and who in his turn pulled in several others by his struggling. The excellence of this joke was that not only was the monk nearly drowned, but that Konrad, on emerging from the water, accused him of being the original cause of the mischief, whereupon the poor preacher was nearly pummelled dry by the indignant yet laughing bystanders, and to the great satisfaction of “persons of quality.” It is very clear, I think, that the inspiration of a fool was not always trusted to, and that a joke was sometimes suggested to him, by his master, when the latter had a particular purpose in so doing. I find a trace of this suggestion in the case of a costly joke which the jester of the Roses would certainly not have dared to make on his own responsibility. A deputation from the Venetian States had presented to the Emperor a magnificent goblet of the purest crystal. At the banquet, given in honour of the Ambassadors and their Government, Konrad was in high, loud, and active mirth. So active indeed that he contrived to hook his spur in the tablecloth, and dancing off, to pull away with him everything on the table, the crystal goblet included, which lay in fragments on the ground. The Ambassadors were indignant, and they cried loudly for a flagellation for the fool. Maximilian, however, refused to gratify them. “You see, worthy sirs,” he remarked, “that the thing was only of glass, and that glass is very fragile. Had it been of gold, it would not have broken; and even if it had, its fragments would at least have been valuable.” The Kaiser the more felt this, as he was sorely in want of gold;--of which Konrad told him he would have enough and to spare, if instead of being Sovereign he would take the office of a Minister.