Of all the terrors at the beginning of the war, nothing gave such vague apprehension to the people, as the sudden depreciation of the coinage. To the fancy of the suffering generation, the evil became so much the greater, as in the gloomy frame of mind of that period it appeared to occur suddenly, and everywhere roused the most frightful passions, discord in families, and hatred and strife between debtors and creditors, leaving behind, hunger, poverty, beggary, and immorality. It made honourable citizens gamblers, drunkards, and profligates, it drove preachers and schoolmasters from their offices, brought opulent families to beggary, plunged every government into miserable confusion, and threatened the dwellers in cities, in a thickly populated country, with famine. It was the third year of the war; its flames had already carried destruction over Bohemia and the Palatinate, and the ruins were still glowing, on which the Imperial troops erected the cross of the old faith. A sultry atmosphere loured over the country; throughout the empire, in every class, men armed themselves, and anxiety for the future pervaded all. But intercourse with the provinces in which the war was at first located, was then comparatively small. The countries exposed to its fury were, with the exception of the Palatinate, provinces belonging to the Emperor; and on the Elbe and lower Rhine, in Thuringia, Franconia, and the territories of lower Saxony, it was still a question whether the danger was approaching home. In August, 1621, the peasant had the prospect of a moderate harvest; in trade and commerce there was some degree of stagnation, but there was much of that excited eagerness which is the natural offspring of a great defensive movement, and manly youths were more allured than intimidated by the wild conduct of the soldiery. It had indeed been long remarked, that there was something unusual about the money which circulated in the country. The good heavy Imperial coin became more and more scarce, in its place much new money was current, badly coined, and of a red colour. The increasing rise in the price of foreign goods appeared still more strange. Everything became dearer. Whoever wished to make a present to a godchild, or to pay foreign tradesmen, had to give an increasing _agio_ for his old pure Joachim's thaler. But in the local trade, betwixt town and country, the extensive new coinage was taken without hesitation, indeed it was exchanged or bartered with an increased activity. The mass of the people did not observe that the different kinds of coin with which it was the custom to pay, became in their hands, worthless lead; but the sharper ones, who had an inkling of the state of things, became, for the most part, accomplices in the dishonest usury of the Princes. It may be distinctly perceived how the people came to a knowledge of their situation, and we still feel dismayed at the sudden terror, anguish, and