TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE IT is, perhaps, necessary to offer some apology for the space occupied by the notes, in consequence of the plan I have adopted in respect of a large portion of them. The German authorities cited are chiefly contemporaneous-many of them unprinted, and drawn from different parts of the vast empire through which the German tongue is spoken. They abound in obsolete and provincial forms-if indeed the word provincial can be applied to any of the varieties of a language, no one of which then claimed a metropolitan authority,—and present difficulties, which even a German, if unprepared by special studies, often finds, to say the least, extremely perplexing. To secure the reader, therefore, against any errors I may have fallen into, and in order that, if important, they may be pointed out, I have placed the original within reach. I hope the translations may give some idea of the light these notes throw on individual as well as national character. We find in them one source of the vigour and animation of the portraits, and the dramatic vivacity of the scenes, with which this history abounds. We see that the author has lived with his heroes, and listened to their own homely and expressive language. I have much greater need of the indulgent construction of the reader in behalf of some few notes which I have ventured to add. Nothing but my own belief, and the assurance of others, that they were absolutely necessary to the understanding of certain passages in the work, would have induced me to risk such a departure from my proper province. Names of institutions and of offices scarcely ever admit of a translation. Words analogous in form, or allied in origin, generally express a totally different set of acts or functions in different countries, and can therefore only mislead. And if such names convey false ideas, others again convey none at all. Being compelled to endeavour to affix some tolerably distinct notions to the words of this class which I had to interpret, I ventured to think that the little information I had gathered for myself might not be unacceptable to the less learned of my readers. The scanty nature of it will hardly surprise them, and will, I hope, be pardoned. I have at least sought it in the most authentic and unquestioned sources. I may perhaps be allowed to say, in extenuation of any defects in the M199177 |