, brave,
and jealous of his honour, was to declare himself capable of the basest
treachery, in the very presence of those who had been accustomed to
regard him as the representative of majesty, the judge of their actions,
and the supporter of their laws, and to show himself suddenly as a
traitor, a cheat, and a rebel. It was no easy task, either, to shake to
its foundations a legitimate sovereignty, strengthened by time and
consecrated by laws and religion; to dissolve all the charms of the
senses and the imagination, those formidable guardians of an established
throne, and to attempt forcibly to uproot those invincible feelings of
duty, which plead so loudly and so powerfully in the breast of the
subject, in favour of his sovereign. But, blinded by the splendour of a
crown, Wallenstein observed not the precipice that yawned beneath his
feet; and in full reliance on his own strength, the common case with
energetic and daring minds, he stopped not to consider the magnitude and
the number of the difficulties that opposed him. Wallenstein saw
nothing but an army, partly indifferent and partly exasperated against
the court, accustomed, with a blind submission, to do homage to his
great name, to bow to him as their legislator and judge, and with
trembling reverence to follow his orders as the decrees of fate. In the
extravagant flatteries which were paid to his omnipotence, in the bold
abuse of the court government, in which a lawless soldiery indulged, and
which the wild licence of the camp excused, he thought he read the
sentiments of the army; and the boldness with which they were ready to
censure the monarch's measures, passed with him for a readiness to
renounce their allegiance to a sovereign so little respected. But that
which he had regarded as the lightest matter, proved the most formidable
obstacle with which he had to contend; the soldiers' feelings of
allegiance were the rock on which his hopes were wrecked. Deceived by
the profound respect in which he was held by these lawless bands, he
ascribed the whole to his own personal greatness, without distinguishing
how much he owed to himself, and how much to the dignity with which he
was invested. All trembled before him, while he exercised a legitimate
authority, while obedience to him was a duty, and while his consequence
was supported by the majesty of the sovereign. Greatness, in and of
itself, may excite terror and admiration; but legitimate greatness alone
can in