VERBRUDERUNG (Heritage-Fraternity) over and above,
established this long time, and wearisomely renewed at every new
Accession. Hundreds of Treaties, oppressive to think of:--and now the
last Duke, old Bogislaus, is here, without hope of children; and the
fruit of all that haggling, actual Pommern to wit, will at last fall
home? Alas, no; far otherwise.

For the Kaiser having so triumphantly swept off the Winter-King, and
Christian IV. in the rear of him, and got Germany ready for converting
to Orthodoxy,--wished now to have some hold of the Seaboard, thereby
to punish Denmark; nay thereby, as is hoped, to extend the blessings of
Orthodoxy into England, Sweden, Holland, and the other Heretic States,
in due time. For our plans go far! This is the Kaiser's fixed wish,
rising to the rank of hope now and then: all Europe shall become Papist
again by the help of God and the Devil. So the Kaiser, on hardly any
pretext, seized Mecklenburg from the Proprietors,--"Traitors, how durst
you join Danish Christian?"--and made Wallenstein Duke of it. Duke of
Mecklenburg, "Admiral of the EAST SEA (Baltic);" and set to
"building ships of war in Rostock,"--his plans going far. [Kohler,
_Reichs-Historie,_ pp, 524, 525.] This done, he seized Pommern, which
also is a fine Sea-country,--stirring up Max of Bavaria to make
some idle pretence to Pommern, that so the Kaiser might seize it "in
sequestration till decided on." Under which hard treatment, George
Wilhelm had to sit sad and silent,--though the Stralsunders would not.
Hence the world-famous Siege of Stralsund (1628); fierce Wallenstein
declaring, "I will have the Town, if it hung by a chain from Heaven;"
but finding he could not get it; owing to the Swedish succor, to the
stubborn temper prevalent among the Townsfolk, and also greatly to the
rains and peat-bogs.

A second Uncle of George Wilhelm's, that unlucky Archbishop of Magdeburg
above mentioned, the Kaiser, once more by his own arbitrary will, put
under Ban of the Empire, in this Second Act: "Traitor, how durst you
join with the Danes?" The result of which was Tilly's Sack of Magdeburg
(10-12th May, 1631), a transaction never forgettable by mankind.--As
for Pommern, Gustav Adolf, on his intervening in these matters, landed
there: Pommern was now seized by Gustav Adolf, as a landing-place and
place-of-arms, indispensable for Sweden in the present emergency; and
was so held thenceforth. Pommern will not fall to George Wilhelm at th