is
time.

THIRD ACT, AND WHAT THE KURFURST SUFFERED IN IT.

And now we are at Act THIRD:--Landing of Gustav Adolf "in the Isle of
Usedom, 24th June, 1630," and onward for Eighteen Years till the Peace
of Westphalia, in 1648;--on which, as probably better known to the
reader, we will not here go into details. In this Third Act too, George
Wilhelm followed his old scheme, peace at any price;--as shy of Gustav
as he had been of other Champions of the Cause; and except complaining,
petitioning and manifestoing, studiously did nothing.

Poor man, it was his fate to stand in the range of these huge
collisions,--Bridge of Dessau, Siege of Stralsund, Sack of Magdeburg,
Battle of Leipzig,--where the Titans were bowling rocks at one another;
and he hoped, by dexterous skipping, to escape share of the game.
To keep well with his Kaiser,--and such a Kaiser to Germany and to
him,--this, for George Wilhelm, was always the first commandment. If the
Kaiser confiscate your Uncles, against law; seize your Pommern; rob you
on the public highways,--George Wilhelm, even in such case, is full of
dubitations. Nay his Prime-Minister, one Schwartzenberg, a Catholic,
an Austrian Official at one time,--Progenitor of the Austrian
Schwartzenbergs that now are,--was secretly in the Kaiser's interest,
and is even thought to have been in the Kaiser's pay, all along.

Gustav, at his first landing, had seized Pommern, and swept it clear
of Austrians, for himself and for his own wants; not too regardful of
George Wilhelm's claims on it. He cleared out Frankfurt-on-Oder, Custrin
and other Brandenburg Towns, in a similar manner,--by cannon and
storm, when needful;--drove the Imperialists and Tilly forth of these
countries. Advancing, next year, to save Magdeburg, now shrieking under
Tilly's bombardment, Gustav insisted on having, if not some bond of
union from his Brother-in-law of Brandenburg, at least the temporary
cession of two Places of War for himself, Spandau and Custrin,
indispensable in any farther operation. Which cession Kurfurst George
Wilhelm, though giving all his prayers to the Good Cause, could by
no means grant. Gustav had to insist, with more and more emphasis;
advancing at last, with military menace, upon Berlin itself. He was met
by George Wilhelm and his Council, "in the woods of Copenick," short way
to the east of that City: there George Wilhelm and his Council wandered
about, sending messages, hopelessly consulting; saying