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 ERBVERBRUDERUNG (Heritage-Fraternity) over and above, established this long time, and wearisomely renewed at every new Accession. Hundreds of Treaties, oppressive to think of:--and now the last Duke, old Bogislaus, is here, without hope of children; and the fruit of all that haggling, actual Pommern to wit, will at last fall home? Alas, no; far otherwise. For the Kaiser having so triumphantly swept off the Winter-King, and Christian IV. in the rear of him, and got Germany ready for converting to Orthodoxy,--wished now to have some hold of the Seaboard, thereby to punish Denmark; nay thereby, as is hoped, to extend the blessings of Orthodoxy into England, Sweden, Holland, and the other Heretic States, in due time. For our plans go far! This is the Kaiser's fixed wish, rising to the rank of hope now and then: all Europe shall become Papist again by the help of God and the Devil. So the Kaiser, on hardly any pretext, seized Mecklenburg from the Proprietors,--"Traitors, how durst you join Danish Christian?"--and made Wallenstein Duke of it. Duke of Mecklenburg, "Admiral of the EAST SEA (Baltic);" and set to "building ships of war in Rostock,"--his plans going far. [Kohler, _Reichs-Historie,_ pp, 524, 525.] This done, he seized Pommern, which also is a fine Sea-country,--stirring up Max of Bavaria to make some idle pretence to Pommern, that so the Kaiser might seize it "in sequestration till decided on." Under which hard treatment, George Wilhelm had to sit sad and silent,--though the Stralsunders would not. Hence the world-famous Siege of Stralsund (1628); fierce Wallenstein declaring, "I will have the Town, if it hung by a chain from Heaven;" but finding he could not get it; owing to the Swedish succor, to the stubborn temper prevalent among the Townsfolk, and also greatly to the rains and peat-bogs.