a general law of the
Empire, those points, which did not immediately affect the latter,
formed the subject of a separate treaty. By it, Lusatia was ceded to
the Elector of Saxony as a fief of Bohemia, and special articles
guaranteed the freedom of religion of this country and of Silesia.

All the Protestant states were invited to accede to the treaty of
Prague, and on that condition were to benefit by the amnesty. The
princes of Wurtemberg and Baden, whose territories the Emperor was
already in possession of, and which he was not disposed to restore
unconditionally; and such vassals of Austria as had borne arms against
their sovereign; and those states which, under the direction of
Oxenstiern, composed the council of the Upper German Circle, were
excluded from the treaty,--not so much with the view of continuing the
war against them, as of compelling them to purchase peace at a dearer
rate. Their territories were to be retained in pledge, till every thing
should be restored to its former footing. Such was the treaty of
Prague. Equal justice, however, towards all, might perhaps have
restored confidence between the head of the Empire and its members--
between the Protestants and the Roman Catholics--between the Reformed
and the Lutheran party; and the Swedes, abandoned by all their allies,
would in all probability have been driven from Germany with disgrace.
But this inequality strengthened, in those who were more severely
treated, the spirit of mistrust and opposition, and made it an easier
task for the Swedes to keep alive the flame of war, and to maintain a
party in Germany.

The peace of Prague, as might have been expected, was received with very
various feelings throughout Germany. The attempt to conciliate both
parties, had rendered it obnoxious to both. The Protestants complained
of the restraints imposed upon them; the Roman Catholics thought that
these hated sectaries had been favoured at the expense of the true
church. In the opinion of the latter, the church had been deprived of
its inalienable rights, by the concession to the Protestants of forty
years' undisturbed possession of the ecclesiastical benefices; while the
former murmured that the interests of the Protestant church had been
betrayed, because toleration had not been granted to their
co-religionists in the Austrian dominions. But no one was so bitterly
reproached as the Elector of Saxony, who was publicly denounced as a
deserter, a traitor to relig