as levying an
army; and had appointed Christian of Brunswick its Captain, till he was
got poisoned;--upon which the drinking King of Denmark took the command.

Act SECOND goes from 1624 to 1627 or even 1629; and contains drunken
Christian's Exploits. Which were unfortunate, almost to the ruin of
Denmark itself, as well as of the Nether-Saxon Circle;--till in the
latter of these years he slightly rallied, and got a supportable
Peace granted him (Peace of Lubeck, 1629); after which he sits quiet,
contemplative, with an evil eye upon Sweden now and then. The beatings
he got, in quite regular succession, from Tilly and Consorts, are
not worth mentioning: the only thing one now remembers of him is his
alarming accident on the ramparts of Hameln, just at the opening of
these Campaigns. At Hameln, which was to be a strong post, drunken
Christian rode out once, on a summer afternoon (1624), to see that the
ramparts were all right, or getting all right;--and tumbled, horse and
self (self in liquor, it is thought), in an ominous alarming manner.
Taken up for dead;--nay some of the vague Histories seem to think he was
really dead:--but he lived to be often beaten after that, and had many
moist years more.

Our Kurfurst had another Uncle put to the Ban in this Second
Act,--Christian Wilhelm Archbishop of Magdeburg, "for assisting
the Danish King;" nor was Ban all the ruin that fell on this poor
Archbishop. What could an unfortunate Kurfurst do, but tremble and
obey? There was still a worse smart got by our poor Kurfurst out of Act
Second; the glaring injustice done him in Pommern.

Does the reader remember that scene in the High Church of Stettin a
hundred and fifty years ago? How the Burgermeister threw sword and
helmet into the grave of the last Duke of Pommern-Stettin there; and a
forward Citizen picked them out again in favor of a Collateral Branch?
Never since, any more than then, could Brandenburg get Pommern according
to claim. Collateral Branch, in spite of Friedrich Ironteeth, in spite
even of Albert Achilles and some fighting of his; contrived, by pleading
at the Diets and stirring up noise, to maintain its pretensions: and
Treaties without end ensued, as usual; Treaties refreshed and new-signed
by every Successor of Albert, to a wearisome degree. The sum of which
always was: "Pommern does actual homage to Brandenburg; vassal of
Brandenburg;--and falls home to it, if the now Extant Line go extinct."
Nay there is an ERB