the following Excerpt, slightly elucidatory of KURFURSTS and
their function?

"FURST (Prince) I suppose is equivalent originally to our noun of
number, First. The old verb KIEREN (participle ERKOREN still in
use, not to mention 'Val-KYR' and other instances) is essentially
the same word as our CHOOSE, being written KIESEN as well as
KIEREN. Nay, say the etymologists, it is also written KUSSEN (to
KISS,--to CHOOSE with such emphasis!), and is not likely to fall
obsolete in that form.--The other Six Electoral Dignitaries who
grew to Eight by degrees, and may be worth noting once by the
readers of this Book; are:--

"1. Three Ecclesiastical, MAINZ, COLN, TRIER (Mentz, Cologne,
Treves), Archbishops all, with sovereignty and territory more or
less considerable;--who used to be elected as Popes are,
theoretically by their respective Chapters and the Heavenly
Inspirations, but practically by the intrigues and pressures of
the neighboring Potentates, especially France and Austria.

"2. Three Secular, SACHSEN, PFALZ, BOHMEN (Saxony, Palatinate,
Bohemia); of which the last, BOHMEN, since it fell from being a
Kingdom in itself, to being a Province of Austria, is not very
vocal in the Diets. These Six, with Brandenburg, are the Seven
Kurfursts in old time; SEPTEMVIRS of the Country, so to speak.

"But now PFALZ, in the Thirty-Years War (under our Prince Rupert's
Father, whom the Germans call the `Winter-King'), got abrogated,
put to the ban, so far as an indignant Kaiser could; and the vote
and KUR of Pfalz was given to his Cousin of BAIERN (Bavaria),--