the nobility, on account of the immense influence which it has ever since exercised in the political affairs of Poland. The origin of the late revolutionary movements must of course be sought in that extraordinary transaction,on many accounts perhaps the most remarkable in the whole course of modern history, the partition of Poland. It was towards the middle of the last century, that a knowledge of the real causes of the troubles, which had so long distracted the kingdom, began to be diffused among men of education, and that many patriots set themselves seriously about the work of regeneration. They attempted to break the power of the two hundred thousand nobles, who constituted the Government; to divide this power between the nobles, the king, and the people; to abolish the fatal liberum veto; and to put an end to confederations, and the pacta conventa. But they were too late. Russia, Austria and Prussia had already marked Poland for their prey, and resolved to prevent any remedy being applied to the evils, which were rapidly bringing her within their grasp. A lawless and violent interference had already taken place; for when the Diet in 1733 had elected the virtuous and unfortunate Leczynski to the throne, Russia declared that he should not remain upon it. He had married the daughter of Louis XV. of France; and Russia feared the introduction of French influence in Poland. The usual intrigues were set on foot; a few unprincipled nobles and venal bishops were invited to confederate to protest against the election of Leczynski, to proclaim Augustus III., a Saxon Prince, and to call in the Russian army to support them. They did so; and the Russians, who were standing tip-toe on the frontier, swept over the country, forced Leczynski to fly, and established Augustus. The next election was managed in the same way; but stern and devoted patriots were found at the Diet, who, hoping that the ill-omened veto might for once at least be useful to their country, boldly threw themselves forward, and by their disapproval rendered null the proposals. The Marshal, or Speaker of the Diet, dissolved it by his own authority. But the veto seemed a spirit hanging over Poland for evil only, and not for good; the Russian party disregarded it, they caused a commission to be formed of the factious nobles; and, calling it the government, they caused several dreadful blows to be given to the interests of Poland; the elector of Brandenburg was recognised as king of Prussia; and the Czar of Moscow as emperor of all the Russias. But the more darkly the clouds lowered over Poland, the more numerous and energetic did her true patriots appear. It was resolved to place a real Pole upon the throne; and at the next election they chose Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski for their king. It is true that he was sustained both by Russia and Prussia, and that he had been one of the favorites of the Empress Catherine; but it was hoped that his patriotism would revive. It did so, indeed, for a time; that weak-minded prince seemed to set himself seriously to work to prop the falling fortunes of Poland. He proposed and effected a reform of the liberum veto, applying it only to certain political questions: a system of duties was established for goods imported, there having been none exacted before but by individual nobles on the frontier; a corps of cadets was formed at Warsaw, and many other useful steps were taken, before Russia was startled by the defection of her protégé. At the opening of the Diet of 1766, the king proposed to abolish the liberum veto entirely; and to increase the revenues, and consequently the power of the throne. But Russia was there; and her ambassador had the audacity to declare, that his mistress never would consent to such measures. By the influence of Czartoryski and some others of the high nobility, the confederation of the Diet was dissolved; consequently the liberum veto came into force, and with it came anarchy. The confederation of the Diet has been misunderstood, and generally confounded with non-official confederations, which were entirely different. When the Diet was summoned for the purpose of any public exigency, it could confederate itself by unanimous consent; and when so confederated, the power of the veto was lost, and all questions were decided by a majority of voices. There was then no hope for the patriots but in open resistance. The king had begged pardon of Russia for his momentary patriotism; they abandoned him, and formed the celebrated confederation of Bar, so named because it was at the village of Bar that many of the most illustrious and most devoted patriots of Poland leagued together, and swore to redeem their country before she had become entirely a prey to her rapacious neighbors. It was necessary for the confederates to make some appeal, which would come home to the hearts of the lower classes; and it was that of the restoration of their ancient religion, and the exclusion of protestant influence in the Government: hence this confederation has been stigmatized as an association of bigots, animated only by religious fury. Never was a calumny more completely refuted by the result; the patriots in every part of Poland answered enthusiastically to the call of the confederates of Bar, and a desperate struggle ensued with the armies of Russia, which were marched into Poland and acted with Poniatowski and his few troops. The confederation was supported by Turkey, who marched upon Russia on one side; and by France, whose cabinet, under the guidance of the able Choiseul, saw the necessity of checking the power of Russia. Thus encouraged from without, and supported by the enthusiasm of the people, success seemed crowning the confederates. They declared the throne vacant, and were beating back the Russians step by step, when Turkey was forced to a peace; the Choiseul ministry fell into disgrace in France; several of the leading chiefs of the confederation died or were slain; and the Austrian army on one side, and the Prussian on the other entered the territories of Poland. There was now but one resource left for the confederates; by a bold stroke they seized upon the person of the king, and attempted to induce him to head the national party; but he basely deserted them in the night, and fled to the Russians. These devoted men, after protesting solemnly against this invasion of their soil by foreign nations, were obliged to disperse; and the invading powers proceeded to the first partition of Poland. Then it was that the miserable Poniatowski saw the abyss into which he had plunged his country, and rallied courage enough to issue his solemn protest against the partition. He was obliged, however, by the ministers of the three powers to convoke a Diet; that memorable Diet of 1773, which displayed such a struggle between vice and virtue, between patriotism and treason.' Then there went up to Warsaw, from the provinces of Poland, nobles who forgot all their own interests, all their own passions, resolved to sacrifice every thing on the altar of patriotism. Many a young man, as he mounted his horse and sallied out, surrounded by his chosen followers, from those turreted walls where his ancestors had held feudal sway for ages, heard the blessing of his father, mingled with words like those of the aged Korsak to his son: 'Adieu, my brave boy,' said he, 'I send with you to Warsaw my oldest and most faithful servants, and I pray God they may bring you back a corpse, rather than come with the news that you have not withstood with all your might whatever may be proposed, that is disadvantageous to your country.'* And bravely and obstinately did Korsak, and Taremba, and Tymoski, and many others, struggle for the liberties of Poland; but what could they do against intrigue, and treason, and brute force? No one can have forgotten how their legal resistance was overcome by violence; how armed soldiers were placed in the hall of deliberation; how Reyten, the Cato of Poland, in defiance of danger, and in a state of exhaustion, continued to occupy his post, and to protest from the tribune; or how, to get rid of him, the Diet was held without the hall; and how he lay thirty-six hours in a state of insensibility, ere he was removed from the place on which he had fallen, and where he had so long struggled for the independence of his country. His firmness was such, that a Prussian general who was present could not but grasp his hand, and cry with enthu siasm, optime vir, gratulor tibi; optime rem tuam egisti. Such was the enthusiastic patriotism of Reyten, that his heart was broken, and his brain was turned, when he found that all his efforts were useless; he went raving mad, and seizing in his frenzy a drinking glass, he crushed it with his teeth, swallowed the fragments, and died with the name of Poland on his lips. After such a violent struggle, what remained of Poland sunk into the quiet of exhaustion for some time; but this quiet was political and physical, not moral; for we find that an immense advance was made in the education of the people, and in the dissemination of rational ideas of liberty. Each Diet enacted wise and prudent laws, conformable to the spirit of the age; and in 1791 was issued that excellent constitution, which seemed to guaranty to Poland, shorn as she was of territory, a long, peaceable, and happy political existence, as a second rate power. The liberum veto and the confederacies were abolished; the middling class were admitted to a participation of power, and measures were taken for the education of the peasantry. The throne was made hereditary in the house of Saxony; and a tenth of the revenues was voted to the Government, with an authorization to augment the army to one *Tableau de la Pologne, p. 107, VOL. XXXVI.-No. 78. hundred thousand men. Complete religious toleration was proclaimed; the peasantry were freed from the odious condition which bound them to the land which they cultivated; the burgesses or middling class, were permitted to buy the lands of the nobility, and every foreigner entering Poland was declared to be a freeman. In fine, it was a constitution of which Burke said, it benefits all classes and injures none;' and of which Kant added, nisi scirem opus humanum esse divinum crederim.' Political circumstances prevented any union of Russia and Prussia at that moment, and indeed the latter charged her ambassador to congratulate Poland on her happy and wise revolution, which had given her such an excellent constitution. Let it be observed that this revolution was entirely in favor of monarchical institutions, and destructive of the democratic power. How false then, how absurd the hypocrisy of the three Governments, which asserted that their interference in the affairs of Poland was necessary, to prevent the propagation of French jacobinical principles! The manner of the adoption of this constitution spoke volumes for Poland; for the Diet, having voted it first by acclamation, again reconsidered and approved it, and then submitted it to the electoral bodies, in every part of Poland, by which it was every where accepted with enthusiasm. But the three powerful nations who surrounded her had already planned a second partition; and measures were already taken by them to put it into execution. There has been but one voice among men on the subject of the partition of Poland ;-it has been that of loud, and decided condemnation; but their opinions respecting the cause have been various; and although the generally received one, that territorial acquisition was the principal motive, has much apparent reason, there were doubtless other powerful ones in action. We would fain not think so meanly of human nature, as to suppose that Maria Theresa, hypocrite as she was, could have been actuated merely by cupidity, or that this motive alone should have induced the king of Prussia to violate the treaties on which his signature was hardly yet dry, and break the word of honor which had just escaped his lips; nor was it the interest of Russia, to risk the unity of her empire and the homogeneity of her people, for the mere acquisition of acres, of which she had millions on millions to |