The author has chosen the valiant Lampe as the object of his attack, as the cautious zeal of the Saxon ecclesiastic whose distinguished colleagues were accused of being Wippers--for example, the notorious court preacher Hoe, the subservient tool of the Elector--had excited the indignation of a powerful mind. A manly judgment, and a very just democratic tone appears in the strong expressions of this writing. We may judge of its peculiar tenour from the following passages:--
"I have never yet seen a single penny, and much less an inferior coin, on which was to be found the names, arms, or stamp of Kipper and Wipper, still less any inscription from the new quail call, kippediwipp. But one may truly see thereupon a well-known stamp or image, and the Kipper or Wipper will not appear even in the smallest letter of the alphabet.
"But if Herr Magister does not rightly understand the matter, let him ask who has bought the old saucepans at the highest price, in order to assist the coining; having done so, Herr Magister will truly learn who has coined the copper and tin money. For truly so many old pans in which so much good gruel or millet pap has been made, and so many coppers in which so much good beer has been brewed, are melted down and coined, and this not by the vulgar Kipper, but by the Arch kipper. For the others have no regale to coin, and if they, like the blood and deer hounds, have scented and hunted out such things, they have done so by the command of others, and thus are not to be so severely condemned as those (let them call themselves what they may) who have the regalie, and misuse it to the perceptible damage of the German States.
"No one now-a-days will bell the cat, or, like John the Baptist, tell the truth to Herod. Every one heaps abuse upon the poor rogues, the Kippers and Wippers, who nevertheless do not carry on this business by their own authority, for all that they do takes place with the knowledge, consent, and approbation of the government. And alas, they have now-a-days many competitors. For as soon as any one gets a penny or a groschen that is a little better than another, he forthwith makes with it usurious profit. Therefore, as experience teaches, it comes to pass as follows: the doctors abandon their invalids and think far more of usury than of Hippocrates and Galen; the lawyers forget their legal documents, lay aside their practice, and taking usury in hand, let who will peruse Bartholus and Balbus. The same is also done by other men of learning, who study arithmetic more than rhetoric and philosophy; the merchants, shop-keepers, and other traders acquire nowadays their greatest gains by their hardwares which are marked by the mint stamp.
"From this we may perceive that the 'unhanged, thievish, oath-forgetting, dishonourable,' Kippers and Wippers, though not indeed to be quite exculpated, are not so much to be condemned as if they were the causa principalis of the ruin of the German States. I have, alas! assuredly great fears, that if once there is a delivery to the devil or hangman, the Kippers and Wippers, changers and usurers, Jews and Jew associates, helpers and helpers' helpers, one thief with another, will all be hurled off to the devil, or be hung up at the same time together, like yonder host with his companions. Yet with a difference. For their principals and patrons will justly have the prerogative and pre-eminence, and indeed some of them have been already sent there beforehand. The others will shortly follow to the above-mentioned place, and it will then avail nothing on this journey downward, whether one treats them with carmina or crimina, whether one passes judgment on them as criminals, or gives them laudatory poems--facilis descensus Averni--they will easily find the way, for they need no good fortune for that; the devil will couple them all with one cord, be the rogues ever so big. Fiat."
It is not improbable that a similar view of their social prospects in another world was impressed upon the rulers from many quarters. At all events, even they discovered that they could only be saved by the most speedy help; nothing would avail them but the reduction and hasty withdrawal of the new coinage, and a return to the good old Imperial coin. Thus the first fears of the princes and cities caused them to depreciate their new money, and to make use of these verdicts in order to express their abhorrence--not of very old date--of the bad coin, and they forthwith had the coin stamped honourably of due weight and alloy, as prescribed by the Imperial law. In order to put a stop to the excessive increase of prices, they hastened to put forth a tariff of goods and wages, which decided the highest price to be permitted. It is clear that this latter remedy could not be of more lasting use than the famous edict of Diocletian, thirteen hundred years before. The compulsion which, for example, it exercised over the city weekly markets, day labourers, and guilds, was only a temporary help for restoring the overflowing stream to its old bed.
This state of intoxication, terror, and fury was followed by a dreary reaction. Men gazed on one another as after a great pestilence. Those who had rested secure in their opulence had sunk into ruin. Many worthless adventurers now strutted, as persons of distinction, in velvet and silk. The whole nation had become poorer. There had not been any great war for a long time, and many millions in silver and gold, the savings of the inferior classes, had been inherited in city and village from father to son; the greater part of these savings had vanished in the bad times; it had been squandered on carousals, frittered away on trifles, and at last expended for daily food. But this was not the greatest evil; it was a still greater, that at this time the citizen, and countryman had been forcibly torn from the path of their honest daily labour. Frivolity, an unsettled existence, and a reckless egotism, had taken possession of them. The destroying powers of war had sent forth their evil spirits to loosen the firm links of burgher society, and to accustom a peaceful, upright, and laborious people to the sufferings and mal-practices of an army which shortly overran all Germany.
The period from 1621 to 1623 was henceforth called the "Kipper and Wipper" time. The confusion, the excitement, the trafficking, and the flying-sheet literature lasted till the year 1625. The lessons which the princes had learnt from the consequences of their flagitious actions did not avail them against later temptations. Even at the end of the seventeenth century it seems to have been impossible for them entirely to avoid hedge mints, and the continual recurrence of a depreciation of money.
Whilst Tilly was conquering Lower Saxony, and Wallenstein made great havoc in Northern Germany, small literature flowed in an under-current. After every engagement, and every capture of a city, there appeared copper engravings, with a text which described the position of the troops and the appearance of the city; irregular newspapers, and songs of lament conveyed the information of the advance of the Imperialists, and the destruction of the Mansfelders. In the midst of all this the people were dismayed by terrible decrees of the Emperor, who now from his secure position threw over the evangelicals, or compelled them by force to return to his Church, in spite of the fruitless intercessions of the Elector of Saxony. The Elector at last authorized the publication of a defence of the Augsburg confession, against the attacks of the Catholic theologians; this comprehensive work, called, 'The necessary Defence of the Apple of the Eye,' written in 1628, called forth immediately a theological war; both opponents and allies hastened in crowds to the field. 'Spectacles for the Evangelical Apple of the Eye;' 'A sharp round Eye on the Romish Pope;' 'Who has struck the Calf in the Eye? The Catholic Oculist or Coucher;' 'Venetian Spectacles on Lutheran Nose,' &c. These are specimens of the defiant titles of the most readable of the controversial writings. But this literary strife was drowned in the burst of loud outcries against Wallenstein, which pierced from Pomerania through all the German States, on account of the battle near Stralsund, and his shameful conduct towards the Pomeranian Duke and his country, and finally the horrible ill treatment of the men and women of Pasewalk. Again these lamentations changed into a shout of joy from all the Protestants. Again hope and confidence revived; this time it was a man, whom the nation, with the genuine German longing to love and honour, welcomed with shouts of jubilee. What had been wanting to the Germans for a century, came to them from the North, an idol and a hero. But he was a foreigner.
Much of that halo of light still surrounds the figure of Gustavus Adolphus, which distinguished him in the eyes of his cotemporaries so immeasurably above all other generals and princes. It is not his victories, nor his knightly death, nor the circumstance that he appeared as the last help to a despairing people, which makes him the one prominent figure in the long struggle. It was the magic of his great nature, as he rode over the field of battle, firm, self-contained, and as confident as unerring; from head to foot he was dignity, decision, and nervous energy. If one examines more nearly, one is astonished at the strong contrasts which combined in this character to form an admirable unity. No General was more systematic, fertile in plans, or greater in the science of war. Discipline in the army, order in the commissariat, a firm basis, and secure lines of retreat in every strategical operation, these were the requisites he brought with him to the conduct of the German War. But even he, the powerful prince of war, was driven by an irresistible necessity from his good system, but with the whole power of his being he incessantly stemmed the tide of the wild marauding war that raged around him. And yet this same systematic man bore within him a rash spirit of daring against the greatest hazards; his bearing in the battle was wonderfully elevated, like that of a noble battle steed. His eyes lighted up, his figure became more lofty, and a smile played on his countenance. Again, how wonderful appears to men, the union in him of frank honesty and wary policy, of upright piety and worldly wisdom, of high-minded self-sacrifice and reckless ambition, of heartfelt humanity and stern severity! And all this was enlivened by an inward confidence and freedom of mind, which enabled him to look in a humorous point of view on the distracted condition of the decaying Princes of the country. The irresistible power which he exercised over all who came under his influence, consisted principally in the freshness of his nature, his surpassing good humour, and where it was necessary, an ironical bonhomie. The way in which he managed the proud and wavering Princes, and the hesitating cities of the Protestant party, was not to be surpassed; he was never weary of exciting them to war, and alliance; he ever reverted to the same theme, whether to the Envoy of the Brandenburger, or when flattering the Nurembergers, or chiding the Frankforters.