.

-- TENTH KURFURST, GEORGE WILHELM.
By far the unluckiest of these Electors, whether the most unworthy of them or not, was George Wilhelm, Tenth Elector, who now succeeded Johann Sigismund his Father.

The Father's eyes had closed when this great flame was breaking out; and the Son's days were all spent amid the hot ashes and fierce blazings of it.
The position of Brandenburg during this sad Thirty-Years War was passive rather than active; distinguished only in the former way, and as far as possible from being glorious or victorious.

Never since the Hohenzollerns came to that Country had Brandenburg such a time.
Difficult to have mended it; impossible to have quite avoided it;--and Kurfurst George Wilhelm was not a man so superior to all his neighbors, that he could clearly see his way in such an element.

The perfect or ideal course was clear: To have frankly drawn sword for his Religion and his Rights, so soon as the battle fairly opened; and to have fought for these same, till he got either them or died.