Bohemia,  enlarged  by  Silesia  and  Lusatia,  has  entered  so
thoroughly  into  the  German  world  as  almost  to  pass
out  of  our  sight.
§  4.  The  Growth  of  Russia  and  Sweden.
Changes  of         The  work  of  the  last  four  centuries  on  the  Baltic
fourcen-     coast  has  bccu  to  drive  back  tlie  Scandinavian  power,

turies.  »

after  a  vast  momentary  advance,  wholly  to  the  west  oi


RUSSIA   AND   PRUSSIA.  503

tlie  Baltic — to  give  nearly  the  whole  eastern  coast  to  Eus-
sia — to  make  the  whole  southern  coast  German.    These
changes  involve  the  wiping  out,  first  of  the  German
military  Order,  and  then  of  Poland  and  Lithuania.  This  Growth  of
last  change  involves  the  growth  of  Eussia,  and  the  crea-  creation  of

p  -r>  •      •         1  T  Prussia.
tion  of  Prussia  m  the  modern  sense,  a  sense  so  strangely
different  from  its  earlier  meaning.  These  two  have  been
the  powers  by  which  Sweden  and  Denmark  liave  been
cut  short,  by  which  Poland  and  Lithuania  have  been
swallowed  up.  In  this  last  work  they  indeed  had  a
third  confederate.  Still  the  share  of  Austria  in  the
overthrow  of  Poland  was  in  a  manner  incidental.  But
the  existence  of  such  a  Polish  and  Lithuanian  state
as  stood  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth,  or  even  of  the
seventeenth,  century  was  inconsistent  with  the  existence
of  either  Eussia  or  Prussia  as  great  European  powers.
The  period  with  which  we  have  now  to  deal  takes
in  only  the  former  stage  of  this  process.  Eussia  ad-
vances ;  Prussia  in  the  modern  sense  comes  into  being.
