field. His portraits represent a square headed, mild-looking solid
gentleman, with a certain twinkle of mirth in the serious eyes of
him. Except in those Hussite wars for Kaiser Sigismund and the
Reich, in which no man could prosper, he may be defined as
constantly prosperous. To Brandenburg he was, very literally, the
blessing of blessings; redemption out of death into life. In the
ruins of that old Friesack Castle, battered down by Heavy Peg,
Antiquarian Science (if it had any eyes) might look for the
tap-root of the Prussian Nation, and the beginning of all that
Brandenburg has since grown to under the sun.

Friedrich, in one capacity or another, presided over Brandenburg
near thirty years. He came thither first of all in 1412; was not
completely Kurfurst in his own right till 1415; nor publicly
installed, "with 100,000 looking on from the roofs and windows,"
in Constance yonder, till 1417,--age then some forty-five.
His Brandenburg residence, when he happened to have time for
residing or sitting still, was Tangermunde, the Castle built by
Kaiser Karl IV. He died there, 21st September, 1440; laden
tolerably with years, and still better with memories of hard work
done. Rentsch guesses by good inference he was born about 1372.
As I count, he is seventh in descent from that Conrad, Burggraf
Conrad I., Cadet of Hohenzollern, who came down from the Rauhe
Alp, seeking service with Kaiser Redbeard, above two centuries
ago: Conrad's generation and six others had vanished successively
from the world-theatre in that ever-mysterious manner, and left
the stage clear, when Burggraf Friedrich the Sixth came to be
First Elector. Let three centuries, let twelve generations farther
come and pass, and there will be another still more notable
Friedrich,--our little Fritz, destined to be Third King of