Kurfurst Albert Achilles's second son, Friedrich (1460-1536),
[Rentsch, pp. 593-602.] the founder of the Elder Culmbach Line,
ruled his country well for certain years, and was "a man famed for
strength of body and mind;" but claims little notice from us,
except for the sons he had. A quiet, commendable, honorable man,--
with a certain pathetic dignity, visible even in the eclipsed
state he sank into. Poor old gentleman, after grand enough feats
in war and peace, he fell melancholy, fell imbecile, blind, soon
after middle life; and continued so for twenty years, till he
died. During which dark state, say the old Books, it was a
pleasure to see with what attention his Sons treated him, and how
reverently the eldest always led him out to dinner. [Ib. p. 612.]
They live and dine at that high Castle of Plassenburg, where old
Friedrich can behold the Red or White Mayn no more. Alas, alas,
Plassenburg is now a Correction-House, where male and female
scoundrels do beating of hemp; and pious Friedrich, like eloquent
Johann, has become a forgotten object. He was of the German
Reichs-Array, who marched to the Netherlands to deliver Max from
durance; Max, the King of the Romans, whom, for all his luck, the
mutinous Flemings had put under lock-and-key at one time. [1482
(Pauli, ii. 389): his beautiful young Wife, "thrown from her
horse," had perished in a thrice-tragic way, short while before;
and the Seventeen Provinces were unruly under the guardianship of
Max.] That is his one feat memorable to me at present.

He was Johann Cicero's HALF-brother, child by a second wife.
Like his Uncle Kurfurst Friedrich II., he had married a Polish
Princess; the sharp Achilles having perhaps an eye to crowns in
that direction, during that Hungarian-Bohemian-Polish Donnybrook.