pushed their incursions to the very gates of Prague.  Brilliant and promising as the opening of the Bohemian campaign had been, the issue by no means satisfied the expectations of Gustavus Adolphus.  Instead of vigorously following up their advantages, by forcing a passage to the Swedish army through the conquered country, and then, with it, attacking the imperial power in its centre, the Saxons weakened themselves in a war of skirmishes, in which they were not always successful, while they lost the time which should have been devoted to greater undertakings.  But the Elector’s subsequent conduct betrayed the motives which had prevented him from pushing his advantage over the Emperor, and by consistent measures promoting the plans of the King of Sweden.

The Emperor had now lost the greater part of Bohemia, and the Saxons were advancing against Austria, while the Swedish monarch was rapidly moving to the same point through Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria.  A long war had exhausted the strength of the Austrian monarchy, wasted the country, and diminished its armies.  The renown of its victories was no more, as well as the confidence inspired by constant success; its troops had lost the obedience and discipline to which those of the Swedish monarch owed all their superiority in the field.  The confederates of the Emperor were disarmed, or their fidelity shaken by the danger which threatened themselves.  Even Maximilian of Bavaria, Austria’s most powerful ally, seemed disposed to yield to the seductive proposition of neutrality; while his suspicious alliance with France had long been a subject of apprehension to the Emperor.  The bishop of Wuertzburg and Bamberg, the Elector of Mentz, and the Duke of Lorraine, were either expelled from their territories or threatened with immediate attack; Treves had placed itself under the protection of France.  The bravery of the Hollanders gave full employment to the Spanish arms in the Netherlands; while Gustavus had driven them from the Rhine.  Poland was still fettered by the truce which subsisted between that country and Sweden.  The Hungarian frontier was threatened by the Transylvania Prince, Ragotsky, a successor of Bethlem Gabor and the inheritor of his restless mind; while the Porte was making great preparation to profit by the favorable conjuncture for aggression.  Most of the Protestant states, encouraged by their protector’s success, were openly and actively declaring against the Emperor.  All the resources which had been obtained by the violent and oppressive extortions of Tilly and Wallenstein were exhausted; all these depots, magazines, and rallying-points were now lost to the Emperor; and the war could no longer be carried on as before at the cost of others.  To complete his embarrassment, a dangerous insurrection broke out in the territory of the Ens, where the ill-timed religious zeal of the government had provoked the Protestants to resistance; and thus fanaticism lit its torch within the empire, while a foreign enemy