The Ascanier Cousins, high Saxon dignitaries some of them, gloomed
mere disappointment, and protested hard; but could not mend the
matter, now or afterwards. Their Line went out in Saxony too, in
course of time; gave place to the WETTINS, who are still there.
The Ascanier had to be content with the more pristine state of
acquisitions,--high pedigrees, old castles of Ascanien and
Ballenstadt, territories of Anhalt or what else they had;--and
never rose again to the lost height, though the race still lives,
and has qualities besides its pedigree. We said the "Old
Dessauer," Leopold Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, was the head of it in
Friedrich Wilhelm's time; and to this day he has descendants.
Catharine II. of Russia was of Anhalt-Zerbst, a junior branch.
Albert the Bear, if that is of any use to him, has still
occasionally notable representatives.

Ludwig junior, Kaiser Ludwig the Bavarian's eldest son, was still
under age when appointed Kurfurst of Brandenburg in 1323:
of course he had a "STATEHOLDER" (Viceregent, STATTHALTER);
then, and afterwards in occasional absences of his, a series of
such, Kaiser's Councillors, Burggraf Friedrich IV. among them, had
to take some thought of Brandenburg in its new posture. Who these
Brandenburg Statthalters were, is heartily indifferent even to
Dryasdust,--except that one of them for some time was a
Hohenzollern: which circumstance Dryasdust marks with the due note
of admiration. "What he did there," Dryasdust admits, "is not
written anywhere;"--good, we will hope, and not evil;--but only
the Diploma nominating him (of date 1346, not in Ludwig's
minority, but many years after that ended [Rentsch, p. 323.]) now
exists by way of record. A difficult problem he, like the other
regents and viceregents, must have had; little dreaming that it