was narrowed, the world of hope
expanded before him, and his dreamy imagination revelled in boundless
projects, which, in any mind but such as his, madness alone could have
given birth to. His services had raised him to the proudest height
which it was possible for a man, by his own efforts, to attain. Fortune
had denied him nothing which the subject and the citizen could lawfully
enjoy. Till the moment of his dismissal, his demands had met with no
refusal, his ambition had met with no check; but the blow which, at the
diet of Ratisbon, humbled him, showed him the difference between
ORIGINAL and DEPUTED power, the distance between the subject and his
sovereign. Roused from the intoxication of his own greatness by this
sudden reverse of fortune, he compared the authority which he had
possessed, with that which had deprived him of it; and his ambition
marked the steps which it had yet to surmount upon the ladder of
fortune. From the moment he had so bitterly experienced the weight of
sovereign power, his efforts were directed to attain it for himself; the
wrong which he himself had suffered made him a robber. Had he not been
outraged by injustice, he might have obediently moved in his orbit round
the majesty of the throne, satisfied with the glory of being the
brightest of its satellites. It was only when violently forced from its
sphere, that his wandering star threw in disorder the system to which it
belonged, and came in destructive collision with its sun.

Gustavus Adolphus had overrun the north of Germany; one place after
another was lost; and at Leipzig, the flower of the Austrian army had
fallen. The intelligence of this defeat soon reached the ears of
Wallenstein, who, in the retired obscurity of a private station in
Prague, contemplated from a calm distance the tumult of war. The news,
which filled the breasts of the Roman Catholics with dismay, announced
to him the return of greatness and good fortune. For him was Gustavus
Adolphus labouring. Scarce had the king begun to gain reputation by his
exploits, when Wallenstein lost not a moment to court his friendship,
and to make common cause with this successful enemy of Austria. The
banished Count Thurn, who had long entered the service of Sweden,
undertook to convey Wallenstein's congratulations to the king, and to
invite him to a close alliance with the duke. Wallenstein required
15,000 men from the king; and with these, and the troops he himself
engaged to raise,