Meanwhile our first enigmatic set of Markgraves, or Deputy-
Markgraves, at Brandenburg, are likewise faring ill. Whoever these
valiant steel-gray gentlemen might be (which Dryasdust does not
the least know, and only makes you more uncertain the more he
pretends to tell), one thing is very evident, they had no
peaceable possession of the place, nor for above a hundred years,
a constant one on any terms. The Wends were highly disinclined to
conversion and obedience: once and again, and still again, they
burst up; got temporary hold of Brandenburg, hoping to keep it;
and did frightful heterodoxies there. So that to our distressed
imagination those poor "Markgraves of Witekind descent," our first
set in Brandenburg, become altogether shadowy, intermittent,
enigmatic, painfully actual as they once were. Take one instance,
omitting others; which happily proves to be the finish of that
first shadowy line, and introduces us to a new set very slightly
more substantial.


END OF THE FIRST SHADOWY LINE.

In the year 1023, near a century after Henry the Fowler's feat,
the Wends bursting up in never-imagined fury, get hold of
Brandenburg again,--for the third and, one would fain hope, the
last time. The reason was, words spoken by the then Markgraf of
Brandenburg, Dietrich or Theodoric, last of the Witekind
Markgraves; who hearing that a Cousin of his (Markgraf or Deputy-
Markgraf like himself) was about wedding his daughter to "Mistevoi
King of the Wends," said too earnestly: "Don't! Will you give your
daughter to a dog?" Word "dog" was used, says my authority. [See