was already on its frontier.  After so long a continuance of good fortune, such brilliant victories and extensive conquests, such fruitless effusion of blood, the Emperor saw himself a second time on the brink of that abyss into which he was so near falling at the commencement of his reign.  If Bavaria should embrace the neutrality; if Saxony should resist the tempting offers he had held out; and France resolve to attack the Spanish power at the same time in the Netherlands, in Italy and in Catalonia, the ruin of Austria would be complete; the allied powers would divide its spoils, and the political system of Germany would undergo a total change.

The chain of these disasters began with the battle of Breitenfeld, the unfortunate issue of which plainly revealed the long decided decline of the Austrian power, whose weakness had hitherto been concealed under the dazzling glitter of a grand name.  The chief cause of the Swedes’ superiority in the field was evidently to be ascribed to the unlimited power of their leader, who concentrated in himself the whole strength of his party; and, unfettered in his enterprises by any higher authority, was complete master of every favorable opportunity, could control all his means to the accomplishment of his ends, and was responsible to none but himself.  But since Wallenstein’s dismissal and Tilly’s defeat, the very reverse of this course was pursued by the Emperor and the League.  The generals wanted authority over their troops, and liberty of acting at their discretion; the soldiers were deficient in discipline and obedience; the scattered corps, in combined operation; the states, in attachment to the cause; the leaders lacked harmony among themselves, quickness to resolve, and firmness to execute.  What gave the Emperor’s enemy so decided an advantage over him was not so much their superior power, as their manner of using it.  The League and the Emperor did not want means, but a mind capable of directing them with energy and effect.  Even had Count Tilly not lost his old renown, distrust of Bavaria would not have allowed the Emperor to place the fate of Austria in the hands of one who had never concealed his attachment to the Bavarian Elector.  The urgent want which Ferdinand felt was for a general possessed of sufficient experience to form and to command an army and willing at the same time to dedicate his services, with blind devotion, to the Austrian monarchy.

This choice now occupied the attention of the Emperor’s privy council and divided the opinions of its members.  In order to oppose one monarch to another, and by the presence of their sovereign to animate the courage of the troops, Ferdinand, in the ardor of the moment, had offered himself to be the leader of his army; but little trouble was required to overturn a resolution which was the offspring of despair alone, and which yielded at once to calm reflection.  But the situation which his dignity, and the duties of administration,