PREFACE THE selection of one prominent name from among the many that usually figure in great historical events, is a more pleasant mode of illustrating the manners of an age than can be achieved in narrating the more cumbrous annals of a nation; and thus the Author of these Memoirs, in presenting them to the public, has endeavoured to delineate the career, and glean from the masses of warlike history the achievements, of a distinguished soldier of fortune. While avoiding all disquisition on the merits of the Thirty Years' War, he has grouped around his hero all the great leaders in that long and sanguinary struggle for the liberties of Germany. Signalised on many a hard-fought field, the conduct and bravery of Sir John Hepburn won for him |