All Germany was now open to the Swedes, and Gustavus hastened forwards in an uninterrupted course of conquest. To his first ally the landgrave of Besse he made over the country ou the Weser, and to the elector of Saxony he promised part of Bohemia. lie himself took possession of the beautiful district which lies betwixt the Rhine and the Main. But the progress of the Swedish arms excited the jealousy and apprehension of the whole German population. Even among the Protestants the national feeling was strong cuough to make them lament the establishment of a foreign domiuion upon the Ger man soil. Gustavus also, whether justly or not does not appear, was accused of having designs on the Imperial crown. His allies became lukewarm, and the iuhabitauta everywhere viewed the Swedes with dislike. Upon the defeat of Tilly at Leipzig. and the Saxon nrtny making itself master of Bohemia almost without opposition, the emperor Ferdinand became excessively alarmed, and called in Wal lenstein, whom he had some time before dismissed, through the intrigues of the papal party, to oppose Gustavus in the field. Wallen stein, the most extraordinary man of his time, had scarcely received his commander's staff, when he drove the &mous out of Bohemia, and threatened his adversary Gustavus Adolphus, who in the meantime bad obtained a second victory over Tilly on the Lech, in which that general lost his life. Walleustein took up a strong position in the neighbourhood of Niirnberg, by which he cut off n11 succours from the king of Sweden, and frustrated his plan of penetrating along the Danube through Bavaria into Austria. In fruitless attacks upon the camp of Walleostein, and through hunger and disease, in the course of seventy-two days Gustavus lost 30,000 men. At length Wallenstein moved towards Saxony, sad on the 1st of November 1632 he offered battle to his opponent nt Lutzen.
The two armies eogaged on the 6th of November. Gustavus opened the battle of Lutzen to the sound of music, with Luther's hymn,' Eine fest° Burg ist unser Gott.' He himself sang the words, and the army
followed in chorus. lie led the attack iu person, desceuded at the critical moment from his horse, and killed the foremost of the enemy with a lance. While bending a second attack on horseback against the enemy's cavalry, a ball struck him from behind, and he fell The horse, without its rider, flying through the Swedish ranks, announced the death of the but Duke Bernhard of Weimar crying out to the Swedes that the king was made a prisoner, inflamed them to such a degree, that nothing could resist their impetuosity, and after a fright ful carnage the enemy was forced to retreat. The Sweden gniued a victory, but with the loss of their king, whose body was found naked and bleeding upon the field. A strong suspicion of the crime of assassivation rests upon his cousin the Duke of Saxe-Laueuburg, who at the moment of his fall was near him, and who shortly afterwards entered the Austrian service.
Thus ended the life of Gustavus Adolphus, one of the best men who ever wore a crown. lie was simple and moderate in his private life, wise in the admiuistratiou of civil affairs, and a most able corn ' mander. He died esteemed by n11, oven by his enemies, but lamented by no one, not even by those whom he had saved. The Romeo Catholics rejoiced over the fall of their powerful adversary; and the Protestants, who now thought themselves strong enough without his help, were glad to be freed from a master whom they envied and ewspected. lint the war still raged for sixteen years after his death, and Germany, groaning beneath the cruelties of a profligate soldiery, had frequent occasion to regret the memory, and to wish for the moderation and the discipline observed by the Swedish soldiers of Gustavus.
Gustavus Adolphus married, in 1621, Maria Eleonora, the sister of the Duke of Mecklenburg, by whom ho had one daughter, Christina, who was his successor.
(Schiller; Westenrieder, Geschichte des dreissig-jahrigen Krieges.)