Job grieves at the downfall of his house; Hübner's "Ruth," because her weeping mother-in-law entreats her to depart; Stilke's "Pilgrim in the Desert," because his horse has died of thirst; Plüddeman's "Columbus," because he knows himself to be unworthy of the grace of God which enabled him to discover America; Kiederich's "Charles V", because he has retired too early to his monastery, and is plagued by the ticking of his watch. The Hohenstaufens, of course, appealed more to the pity of the public: the misfortunes of the beautiful Enzin, of Manfred and Conrad, gave birth to a sentiment of profoundest sadness. Even brigands mourn at the depravity of the world. The age had come to despise its own Philistine situation so deeply that it looked up to the brigands, the adversaries of civil order, as to representatives of justice. All depravity, it was said, originated with the public functionaries, and to the noble brigands was allotted the task of revolutionising existing things. Their ally in this was to be the poacher. At a time when a revision of the game-laws was the sole timid wish the people ventured to lay before its princes, it was only logical that the poacher should be looked upon as the victim of injustice, as the rescuer of the small man from the claws of feudal despotism. The numerous pictures that glorify him, as he falls weltering in his blood beneath the guns of the gamekeepers, make pendants to Raupach's "Smugglers," and to the rest of the highly esteemed literature which turned the life of the poacher into sentimental dramas or novels. [Illustration: LESSING. THE SORROWING ROYAL PAIR.]