learning of his great rival in terms of high and deserved commendation; and justly ascribes to the Reports the praise of having preserved the vessel of the common law in a steady and consistent course; "For the law," says he, "by this time had been like a ship without ballast, for that the cases of modern experience are fled from those that are adjudged and ruled in former time."

DURING the fifteenth, and the beginning of the sixteenth century, Sweden, lying under vassalage to the crown of Denmark, suffered the evils which commonly belong to that condition. Gustavus Vasa, after a series of romantic adventures, established the independence of his country, and was deservedly elected by the Swedish Diet, in 1523, to wear its crown. The same kingdom to which he gave a place among free states, his grandson, Gustavus Adolphus, raised from the obscurity of a petty northern power, to rule in Germany, and to be the terror of the Church of Rome.

The establishment of the Reformation was coeval with the independence of Sweden; and a fundamental law forbade any future sovereign to alter the national religion, or to admit Roman Catholics to offices

of power and trust. For infringing this principal, Sigismond, by election King of Poland, the lineal successor of Gustavus Vasa, was set aside by the Diet, and the crown was given to his father's younger brother, Charles, Duke of Sudermania. Charles died, and was succeeded by his son Gustavus Adolphus, December 31, 1611; the high promise of whose youth induced the States to abridge the period of minority, and admit him at once to the exercise of regal power, though he had but just attained the age of seventeen, being born December 9, 1594.

He had been trained up in the knowledge likely to be serviceable to a king and a soldier. He spoke the Latin language, then a universal medium of communication, with uncommon energy and precision; he conversed fluently in French, Italian, and German ; he had studied history, political science, mathematics, and military tactics; and, commencing with the part of a musketeer, he had been made master, by practice, of all the details of a soldier's life. He was capable of very severe application to abstruse study, and is said to have passed whole nights in reading the military history of the ancients. He was of uncommon stature and strength, and his constitution was early inured to labour and endurance.

Gustavus's situation, at his accession, was critical. The King of Poland laid claim to his dominions, and Denmark and Muscovy were in arms against him. The danger was most pressing on the side of Denmark; and thither Gustavus's first efforts were directed. But in Christian IV. he had to contend with an able enemy, from whom he gained no advantage; and after one unsuccessful campaign he accommodated the quarrel at the expense of some concessions. In the war with Muscovy he was more fortunate; and he reduced the Czar to purchase peace in 1617, by the sacrifice of the provinces which border the Gulf of Finland and

the Baltic sea. During these years of warfare, Gustayus found leisure to bestow attention upon internal improvements. He devoted much thought and care upon strengthening the Swedish navy, esteeming that to be his surest defence against invasion; he sought to encourage commerce; he purified the administration of justice, by rendering judges less dependent upon the crown, and by abridging the tediousness and expense of lawsuits; and he laboured to devise means for increasing the revenue by judicious arrangement, without adding to the burdens of the people. Both in peace and war he received the most valuable assistance from his zealous, faithful, and sagacions minister, the celebrated Oxenstiern.

In 1620 Gustavus travelled incognito through the chief towns of Germany. At Berlin he formed acquaintance with Maria Eleonora, sister to the Elector of Brandenburg, whom he espoused at Stockholm in November of the same year. One daughter, the famous Christina, his successor, was the offspring of this marriage.

The King of Poland's enmity was not seconded by his ability. He endeavoured in vain to shake the fidelity of Gustavus's subjects, and he tried the fortune of war with no better success. In the contests between the cousins, which occurred in the first ten years of Gustavus's reign, the advantage was always on the side of Sweden. Gustavus was desirous of peace, and forbore to press his superiority. But Sigismond's hostility was nourished and stimulated by the leading Catholic powers, Spain and Austria; and he made so bad a return for this moderation, that in 1621 the war was renewed in a more determined manner, and in the course of eight years Livonia, Courland, and Polish Prussia, were gradually subjected to Sweden. During this time Gustavus was no careless spectator of the Thirty Years' War, which

was raging in Germany. However well inclined he might be to step forward as the defender of the Protestant cause, he could not do so with effect while his exertions were demanded in Poland; and though he made an offer of assistance to the Protestants in 1626, it was clogged with conditions which induced them to decline his proposals. But in 1629, under the mediation of France, he concluded a truce for six years with Sigismond, retaining possession of the conquered provinces; and being thus relieved from all fear of Poland, and guaranteed against injury from Denmark by the interest of that country in checking the progress of the Imperial arms, he found himself qualified to take the decisive part which he had long desired in the affairs of Germany. How far his determination was influenced by personal and ambitious motives, how far it was due to patriotism and religious zeal, it must be left to each inquirer to decide for himself. The crisis was one of extreme importance: for the temporal rights of the whole German empire were endangered by the inordinate and seemingly prosperous ambition of the House of Austria; and the Protestant states in particular had reason to apprehend the speedy destruction of their own, and the re-establishment of the Roman Catholic church. And if the influence of the Emperor, Ferdinand II., supported by the papal hierarchy, re-established in its great power and rich benefices through the north of Germany, were suffered unchecked to extend itself to the Baltic sea, the liberties of Sweden and Denmark, and the very existence of the Reformation on the Continent, seemed to be involved in no remote danger. To pull down the power of Ferdinand and the Catholic League thus became of vital moment to the King of Sweden. But though the Protestant princes were ready to invoke his assistance in secret complaints, none of them dared to conclude an open treaty with a distant prince,