mark; conspicuous to the able editors of their day: but the only
Brother now generally known to mankind is Albert, Hochmeister of
the Teutsch Ritterdom; by whom Preussen came into the Family.
Of him we must now speak a little.



Chapter VI.

HOCHMEISTER ALBERT, THIRD NOTABLE SON OF FRIEDRICH.

Albert was born in 1490; George's junior by six years, Casimir's
by nine. He too had been meant for the Church; but soon quitted
that, other prospects and tendencies opening. He had always loved
the ingenuous arts; but the activities too had charms for him.
He early shone in his exercises spiritual and bodily; grew tall
above his fellows, expert in arts, especially in arms;--rode with
his Father to Kaiser Max's Court; was presented by him, as the
light of his eyes, to Kaiser Max; who thought him a very likely
young fellow; and bore him in mind, when the Mastership of the
Teutsch Ritterdom fell vacant. [Rentsch, pp. 840-863.]

The Teutsch Ritterdom, ever since it got its back broken in that
Battle of Tannenberg in 1410, and was driven out of West-Preussen
with such ignominious kicks, has been lying bedrid, eating its
remaining revenues, or sprawling about in helpless efforts to rise
again, which require no notice from us. Hopeless of ever
recovering West-Preussen, it had quietly paid its homage to Poland
for the Eastern part of that Country; quietly for some couple of
generations. But, in the third or fourth generation after