174

DOMESTIC MANNEES OF THE PBUSSIANS.

the title affixed to it before it can do duty as a tavern sign,even so lie who must liave Ins nobility branded ahvays on hisbreast cannot but be a very poor specimen of the species—asif your peers required, like magnums of fine old Port, to havea label hung about their neck, marked " Veet supeeioe ;" andassuredly, had the trumpery princes, present on the occasionabove alluded to, come unticketed, we should have found greatdifficulty in taking them even for gentlemen.

A gentleman has remarked, that "the height of humanhappiness consists in having 1000/. a-year and a toady;" andtoadyism, doubtlessly, is particularly sweet to the toadied.Your German Princes, indeed, seem to think it as great adelicacy as the French do frogs' legs, and appear determined,even if they cannot boast the thousand per annum, to take outin sycophancy the amount of happiness which they are unableto make up in cash.

As an Illustration of the servile tone in which the nobles ofDeutschland require others to address them, even when soli-citing the niost paltry favours at their hands, we may cite thefollowing literal translation of a letter that was sent to a RhenishPrince for permission to enjoy a day's fishing on his estate: —

Soi

■t (9 Uwiwoui I \i

ta«.

boit H/iacioui eb'u/n.ce and iüo^tl

"Luitu ttie moit tno'iou.ari Ivumuttu (gan^ rattailjirasgst)0 wa tnat ucuA Q/feiali and l Uwce/fu sbt'ie'vum WW/i moitw.üj to da/ie to Mitv ivttn a Voa

afyacvowM/u a

tA one

dazu, m uow/i etuia/llu e^Unceui (IjOtljbw&dhcit) kotia at