One can forgive him for declining the Bohemian-King speculation, though his Uncle of Jagerndorf and his Cousins of Liegnitz were so hearty and forward in it. Pardonable in him to decline the Bohemian speculation;--though surely it is very sad that he found himself so short of "butter and firewood" when the poor Ex-King, and his young Wife, then in a specially interesting state, came to take shelter with him! [Solltl _(Geschichte des Dreissigjahrigen Krieges,_--a trivial modern Book) gives a notable memorial from the Brandenburg RATHS, concerning these their difficulties of housekeeping. Their real object, we perceive, was to get rid of a Guest so dangerous as the Ex-King, under Ban of the Empire, had now become.] But when Gustavus landed, and flung out upon the winds such a banner as that of his,--truly it was required of a Protestant Governor of men to be able to read said banner in a certain degree. A Governor, not too IMperfect, would have recognized this Gustavus, what his purposes and likelihoods were; the feeling would have been, checked by due circumspectness: "Up, my men, let us follow this man; let us live and die in the Cause this man goes for! Live otherwise with honor, or die otherwise with honor, we cannot, in the pass things have come to!"--And thus, at the very worst, Brandenburg would have had only one class of enemies to ravage it; and might have escaped with, arithmetically speaking, HALF the harrying it got in that long Business. But Protestant Germany--sad shame to it, which proved lasting sorrow as well--was all alike torpid; Brandenburg not an exceptional case. No Prince stood up as beseemed: or only one, and he not a great one; Landgraf Wilhelm of Hessen, who, and his brave Widow after him, seemed always to know what hour it was. Wilhelm of Hessen all along;--and a few wild hands, Christian of Brunswick, Christian of Anhalt, Johann George of Jagerndorf, who stormed out tumultuously at first, but were soon blown away by the Tilly-Wallenstein TRADE-WINDS and regulated armaments:--the rest sat still, and tried all they could to keep out of harm's way. The "Evangelical Union" did a great deal of manifestoing, pathetic, indignant and other; held solemn Meetings at Heilbronn, old Sir Henry Wotton going as Ambassador to them; but never got any redress. Had the Evangelical Union shut up its inkhorns sooner; girt on its fighting-tools when the time came, and done some little execution with them then, instead of none at all,--we may fancy the Evangelical Union would have better discharged its function. It might have saved immense wretchedness to Germany. But its course went not that way.