me to a more
decisive battle than that of Leipzig. Suddenly the clouds broke, and
the storm rolled away from Franconia, to burst upon the plains of
Saxony. Near Luetzen fell the thunder that had menaced Nuremberg; the
victory, half lost, was purchased by the death of the king. Fortune,
which had never forsaken him in his lifetime, favored the King of
Sweden even in his death, with the rare privilege of falling in the
fulness of his glory and an untarnished fame. By a timely death, his
protecting genius rescued him from the inevitable fate of man--that of
forgetting moderation in the intoxication of success, and justice in
the plenitude of power. It may be doubted whether, had he lived
longer, he would still have deserved the tears which Germany shed over
his grave, or maintained his title to the admiration with which
posterity regards him as the first and only _just_ conqueror that the
world has produced. The untimely fall of their great leader seemed to
threaten the ruin of his party; but to the Power which rules the
world, no loss of a single man is irreparable. As the helm of war
dropped from the hand of the falling hero, it was seized by two great
statesmen, Oxenstiern and Richelieu. Destiny still pursued its
relentless course, and for full sixteen years longer the flames of war
blazed over the ashes of the long-forgotten king and soldier.

I may now be permitted to take a cursory retrospect of Gustavus
Adolphus in his victorious career; glance at the scene in which he
alone was the great actor; and then, when Austria becomes reduced to
extremity by the successes of the Swedes, and by a series of disasters
is driven to the most humiliating and desperate expedients, to return
to the history of the Emperor.

As soon as the plan of operations had been concerted at Halle, between
the King of Sweden and the Elector of Saxony; as soon as the alliance
had been concluded with the neighboring princes of Weimar and Anhalt,
and preparations made for the recovery of the bishopric of Magdeburg,
the king began his march into the empire. He had here no despicable
foe to contend with. Within the empire, the Emperor was still
powerful; throughout Franconia, Swabia, and the Palatinate, imperial
garrisons were posted, with whom the possession of every place of
importance must be disputed sword in hand. On the Rhine he was opposed
by the Spaniards, who had overrun the territory of the banished
Elector Palatine, seized all its strong