Was favourable to his royal wishes.

Bohemia was delivered from the Saxons,

The Swede's career of conquest checked! These lands
Began to draw breath freely, as Duke Friedland
From all the streams of Germany forced hither
The scattered armies of the enemy,

Hither invoked as round one magic circle
The Rhinegrave, Bernhard, Banner, Oxenstirn,
Yea, and that never-conquered King himself;
Here finally, before the eye of Nürnberg,
The fearful game of battle to decide.

Wal.

May't please you to the point.

Ques. In Nürnberg's camp the Swedish monarch left
His fame-in Lützen's plains his life. But who
Stood not astounded, when victorious Friedland
After this day of triumph, this proud day,
Marched toward Bohemia with the speed of flight,
And vanished from the theatre of war;
While the young Weimar hero forced his way
Into Franconia, to the Danube, like

Some delving winter-stream, which, where it rushes,
Makes its own channel; with such sudden speed

He marched, and now at once 'fore Regenspurg
Stood to the affright of all good Catholic Christians.
Then did Bavaria's well-deserving Prince

Entreat swift aidance in his extreme need;

The Emperor sends seven horsemen to Duke Friedland, Seven horsemen couriers sends he with the entreaty: He superadds his own, and supplicates

Where as the sovereign lord he can command.

In vain his supplication! At this moment

The Duke hears only his old hate and grudge,

Barters the general good to gratify

Private revenge-and so falls Regenspurg.

Wal. Max., to what period of the war alludes he My recollection fails me here.

In that description which the minister gave
I seemed to have forgotten the whole war.

Yes! at length

(TO QUESTENBERG.) Well, but proceed a little. Ques.

Beside the river Oder did the Duke

Assert his ancient fame. Upon the fields

Of Steinau did the Swedes lay down their arms,
Subdued without a blow. And here, with others,
The righteousness of Heaven to his avenger
Delivered that long-practised stirrer-up
Of insurrection, that curse-laden torch
And kindler of this war, Matthias Thur.
But he had fallen into magnanimous hands;
Instead of punishment he found reward,
And with rich presents did the Duke dismiss
The arch-foe of his Emperor.

Wal. (laughs).

I know you had already in Vienna

Your windows and balconies all forestalled

To see him on the executioner's cart.

I might have lost the battle, lost it too
With infamy, and still retained your graces
But, to have cheated them of a spectacle,
Oh! that the good folks of Vienna never,
No, never can forgive me.

Ques.

I know,

So Silesia

Was freed, and all things loudly called the Duke
Into Bavaria, now pressed hard on all sides.
And he did put his troops in motion: slowly,
Quite at his ease, and by the longest road

He traverses Bohemia; but ere ever

He hath once seen the enemy, faces round,
Breaks up the march, and takes to winter quarters.
Wal. The troops are pitiably destitute

Of every necessary, every comfort.

The winter came. What thinks his Majesty

His troops are made of? Arn't we men? subjected
Like other men to wet and cold, and all
The circumstances of necessity?

O miserable lot of the poor soldier!
Wherever he comes in, all flee before him.
And when he goes away, the general curse
Follows him on his route. All must be seized,
Nothing is given him. And compelled to seizo
From every man, he's every man's abhorrence.
Behold, here stand my Generals. Karaffa!
Count Deodate! Butler! Tell this man

How long the soldier's pay is in arrears.
But. Already a full year.
Wal.

And 'tis the hire

That constitutes the hireling's name and duties,
The soldier's pay is the soldier's covenant.*

Ques. Ah! this is a far other tone from that,
In which the Duke spoke eight, nine years ago.
Wal. Yes! 'tis my fault, I know it: I myselt
Have spoilt the Emperor by indulging him.
Nine years ago, during the Danish war,
I raised him up a force, a mighty force,
Forty or fifty thousand men, that cost him
Of his own purse no doit. Through Saxony
The fury goddess of the war marched on,
E'en to the surf-rocks of the Baltic, bearing
The terrors of his name. That was a time!
In the whole Imperial realm no name like mine
Honoured with festival and celebration-
And Albrecht Wallenstein, it was the title
Of the third jewel in his crown!

But at the Diet, when the Princes met

At Regenspurg, there, there the whole broke out,
There 'twas laid open, there it was made known,
Out of what money-bag I had paid the host.
And what was now my thank, what had I now,
That I, a faithful servant of the sovereign,
Had loaded on myself the people's curses,
And let the Princs of the empire pay
The expenses of this war, that aggrandises
The Emperor alone-What thanks had I!
What? I was offered up to their complaints,
Dismissed, degraded!

Ques.

But your Highness knows

What little freedom he possessed of action
In that disastrous diet.

Wal.

Death and hell!

I had that which could have procured him freedom.
No! Since 'twas proved so inauspicious to me

*The original is not translatable into English;

-Und sein sold

Mus dem soldaten warden, darnach heisst er.

ght perhaps have been thus rendered:

"And that for which he sold his services,

The o dier must receive."

But a false or douptiul etymology is no more than a dull pun,