But Götz von Berlichingen had set me quite right with the upper classes; whatever improprieties might be charged upon my earlier literary productions, in this work I had with considerable learning and cleverness depicted the old German constitution, with its inviolable emperor at the head, with its many degrees of nobility, and a knight who, in a time of general lawlessness, had determined as a private man to act uprightly, if not lawfully, and thus fell into a very sorry predicament. This complicated story, however, was not snatched from the air, but founded on fact; it was cheerfully lively, and consequently here and there a little modern, but it was, nevertheless, on the whole, in the same spirit as the brave and capable man had with some degree of skill set it forth in his own narrative.
The family still flourished; its relation to the Frankish knighthood had remained in all its integrity, although that relation, like many others at that time, might have grown somewhat faint and nominal.
Now all at once the little stream of Jaxt, and the castle of Jaxthausen, acquired a poetical importance; they, as well as the council-house at Heilbronn, were visited by travellers.
It was known that I had the mind to write of other points of that historical period; and many a family, which could readily deduce its origin from that time, hoped to see its ancestors brought to the light in the same way.
A strange satisfaction is generally felt, when a writer felicitously recalls a nation's history to its recollection; men rejoice in the virtues of their ancestors, and smile at the failings, which they believe they themselves have long since got rid of. Such a delineation never fails to meet with sympathy and applause, and in this respect I enjoyed an envied influence.
Yet it may be worth while to remark, that among the numerous advances, and in the multitude of young persons who attached themselves to me, there was found no nobleman; on the other hand, many who had already arrived at the age of thirty sought me and visited me, and of these the willing and striving were pervaded by a joyful hope of earnestly developing themselves in a national and even more universally humane sense.
Ulrich Von Hutten.
At this time a general curiosity about the epoch between the fifteenth and sixteenth century had commenced, and was very lively. The works of Ulrich von Hutten had fallen into my hands, and I was not a little struck to see something so similar to what had taken place in his time, again manifesting itself in our later days.
The following letter of Ulrich von Hutten to Billibald Pyrkheymer, may therefore suitably find place here:—