Looking in at another minor court, we discover that “Frederick with the bitten cheek,” a Thuringian prince, was partly indebted to a court fool for the scar from which he got his name. It happened that his father, Albert, Landgrave of Thuringia, loved a lady, Cunegunda, better than he did his wife, Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Frederick II. The court fool seems to have been a menial, since I find him described as a carrier of wood and water to the Wartburg, where Margaret resided. Cunegunda so wrought upon the fool by terror, that he consented to murder the Landgrave’s wife; but he only entered her room to reveal to her the conspiracy, and to ask forgiveness. Poor Margaret, aware that her life was not safe, since her rival, Cunegunda von Eisenberg, had resolved to take it, resolved on immediate flight; and it was in her eagerly kissing her little son Frederick before she escaped, that she bit his cheek, and left for ever thereon the testimony of her terror and affection. “She, wanting wit, and frantic with affright, Would fain have kiss’d, but, mad with grief, did bite.” The name of the faithful fool is not given; but he is said to have lived in her service, during the few months she survived, at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. The most renowned fool of the following century was Jenni von Stocken, who was attached to the household of Leopold the Pious. He was greatly esteemed by his master, and often gave him counsel which would have profited him had he been more ready to follow it. Jenni strongly advised Leopold against entering the Swiss defiles before securing his return therefrom, in case of accident. The issue of the battle of Sempach, A.D. 1386, showed that a fool’s advice would have been worth taking. Nearly all von Stocken’s sayings and doings are attributed to various jesters of succeeding centuries. This, too, was the case with Killian, the fool of Albert of Austria. But there is one saying which is undoubtedly Killian’s own. He was a strangely eccentric fellow, and some one asked him why, being so profoundly wise a personage, he should play the fool. “Ah! there it is,” said Killian; “The more thoroughly I play the fool, the wiser do men account me; and there is my son, who thinks himself wise, and whom everybody knows to be a fool.”