1831.] The Hanse Towns. 511 



escape, he was surrounded, seized, and thrown for life into the dungeons 

 of Sunderbourg, leaving to the world nothing but a name, which in his 

 own country still points many a tale of terror. 



The fortunes of this great league had now reached the meridian, and 

 from this period they were to decline. The history of all republics is the 

 same. By the simplicity and directness of their earlier councils, by their 

 riddance of the weighty expenditure which overwhelms monarchies with 

 debt; and still more by their utter rejection of that spirit of patronage 

 which encumbers old governments with imbecility and ignorance in office; 

 and which altogether renders desperate or crushes men of talents born 

 in the inferior ranks of life, they suddenly outrun all their competitors. 

 In their operations there is no reserve for waste ; their whole vigour is 

 called on, and thrown directly into the struggle. Their finance is ap- 

 plied exclusively to the purposes of the state. And where eminent 

 ability exists, it is stimulated to its full development by the consciousness 

 that the most dazzling of all prizes is within its reach, and that if it 

 fail of the highest wealth, power, and fame, the failure is altogether 

 its own. 



But the fall of a republic is as certain as its rise. It contains within 

 itself a principle of inevitable ruin. The popular energy which raised 

 it, undermines it, and the volcanic fire does not more surely hollow and 

 eat away the soil which it covers with preternatural luxuriance, than the 

 power of the multitude breaks down the foundations of the national pros- 

 perity. Lubeck by its maritime prowess in the Danish war had risen for a 

 time to the head of the confederacy. And it was the first to feel the symp- 

 toms of decline. George Wullenwer, a trader of Lubeck, had forced his 

 way up to the highest rank in his country by the exhibition of great public 

 talent. His element was struggle ; and after he had obtained all that 

 ambition could demand at home, the office of bourgomaster or chief of 

 the republic, he was driven by his vigorous and daring nature to seek 

 it abroad. The disturbances of Sweden and Denmark, still agitated by 

 a turbulent noblesse, an impoverished, unruly populace, and the rival 

 claims of pretenders to the throne, offered Wullenwer the natural field 

 for fame. But while he held the reins of government, he required a 

 soldier capable of putting his designs in execution. This ally was soon 

 found in Meyer, who from being a locksmith at Hamburgh, had sprung 

 into celebrity as a first-rate soldier. On this man he conferred the 

 military command of Lubeck ; and then, to render himself monarch in 

 all but name, haranguing the pupulace on the vices of the old senate, 

 and the general errors of the old government, he proposed to renovate 

 the constitution. The oration was successful, the populace applauded, 

 the golden days were come when all was to be freedom, peace and 

 plenty ; and with the words on his lips, this type of Cromwell marched 

 to the senate-house, expelled the senate, placed his creatures in their 

 room, and was lord of the republic. 



Wullenwer's plans of conquest were worthy at once of the brilliancy 

 and the rashness of his ambition. He felt that Lubeck, restricted in 

 her territory to the narrow district at the mouth of the Trave must 

 perish at the first attack by any of the great land powers. He pro- 

 jected the perpetual possession of the Sound, which would give him 

 possession of the Baltic, and the perpetual union of Denmark with 

 Lubeck , or if he failed in obtaining the whole Danish territory, includ- 

 ing Norway, he looked to at least the dismemberment of provinces suf- 



