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academicians, fresh as they were from public schools; their high animal spirits for ever on the wing-ready in wit and in argument— prone now to laugh at trifles, and now earnestly to dispute on themthey stunned and confused my quiet and grave habits of mind. I have met the most brilliant of these men since, and they have been astonished, and confessed themselves astonished, even at the little and meagre reputation I have acquired, and at whatsoever conversational ability I can now, though only by fits and starts, manage to display. They compliment me on my improvement: they mistake—my intellect is just the same-I have improved only in the facility of communicating its fruits. In the summer of that year, I resolved to make a bold effort to harden my mind and conquer its fastidious reserve; and I set out to travel over the North of England, and the greater part of Scotland, in the humble character of a pedestrian tourist. Nothing ever did my character more solid good than that experiment. I was thrown among a thousand varieties of character; I was continually forced into bustle and action, and into providing for myself that great and indelible lesson towards permanent independence of character.

"One evening, in an obscure part of Cumberland, I was seeking a short cut to a neighbouring village through a gentleman's grounds, in which there was a public path. Just within sight of the house (which was an old, desolate building, in the architecture of James the First, with gable-ends and dingy walls, and deep-sunk, gloomy windows), I perceived two ladies at a little distance before me; one seemed in weak and delicate health, for she walked slowly and with pain, and stopped often as she leaned on her companion. I lingered behind, in order not to pass them abruptly; presently, they turned away towards the house, and I saw them no more. Yet that frail and bending form, as I too soon afterwards learned-that form, which I did not recognise-which, by a sort of fatality, I saw only in a glimpse, and yet for the last time on earth,—that form-was the wreck of Lucy D

me.

-!

"Unconscious of this event in my destiny, I left that neighbourhood, and settled for some weeks on the borders of the lake Keswick. There, one evening, a letter, re-directed to me from London, reached The hand-writing was that of Lucy; but the trembling and slurred characters, so different from that graceful ease which was wont to characterise all she did, filled me, even at the first glance, with alarm. This is the letter-read it—you will know, then, what I have lost:

"I write to you, my dear, my unforgotten, the last letter this hand will ever trace. Till now, it would have been a crime to write to you; perhaps it is so still-but dying as I am, and divorced from all earthly thoughts and remembrances, save yours, I feel that I cannot quite collect my mind for the last hour until I have given you the blessing of one whom you loved once; and when that blessing is given, I think I can turn away from your image, and sever willingly the last tie that binds me to earth. I will not afflict you by saying what I have suffered since we parted-with what anguish I thought of what you would feel when you found me gone-and with what cruel, what fearful violence, I was forced into becoming the wretch I now an. I was hurried, I was driven, into a dreadful and bitter duty-but I thank God that I have fulfilled it. What, what have I done, to have been made so miserable throughout life as I have been! I ask my heart, and tax my conscience-and every night I think over the sins of

the day; they do not seem to me heavy, yet my penance has been very great. For the last two years, I do sincerely think that there has not been one day which I have not marked with tears. But enough of this, and of myself. You, dear, dear L————, let me turn to you! Something at my heart tells me that you have not forgotten that once we were the world to each other, and even through the changes and the glories of a man's life, I think you will not forget it. True, L, that I was a poor and friendless, and not too-well educated girl, and altogether unworthy of your destiny; but you did not think so then-and when you have lost me, it is a sad, but it is a real comfort, to feel that that thought will never occur to you. Your memory will invest me with a thousand attractions and graces I did not possess, and all that you recall of me will be linked with the freshest and happiest thoughts of that period of life in which you first beheld me. And this thought, dearest L, sweetens death to me-and sometimes it comforts me for what has been. Had our lot been otherwise-had we been united, and had you survived your love for me (and what more probable!) my lot would have been darker even than it has been. I know not how it is-perhaps from my approaching death-but I seem to have grown old, and to have obtained the right to be your monitor and warner. Forgive me, then, if I implore you to think earnestly and deeply of the great ends of life; think of them as one might think who is anxious to gain a distant home, and who will not be diverted from his way. Oh! could you know how solemn and thrilling a joy comes over me as I nurse the belief, the certainty, that we shall meet at length, and for ever! Will not that hope also animate you, and guide you unerring through the danger and the evil of this entangled life?

"May God bless you, and watch over you-may He comfort and cheer, and elevate your heart to Him! Before you receive this, I shall be no more-and my love, my care for you will, I trust and feel, have become eternal.-Farewell: 'L. M.'

"The letter," continued L, struggling with his emotions, "was dated from that village through which I had so lately passed; thither I repaired that very night-Lucy had been buried the day before! I stood upon a green mound, and a few, few feet below, separated from me by a scanty portion of earth, mouldered that heart which had loved me so faithfully and so well!"*

THE PORTRAIT.

YES, it is lovely-those eyes are bright
With the vivid blaze of Nature's light;
Surely those lips will sever ere long

For the winning speech, or the warbling song:
Artist, I give thee unmingled praise,
Yet I do not grieve to withdraw my gaze,
For I boast a source of more soul-felt bliss,
And I know a portrait more just than this.

Affection's true and unerring art
Has fix'd that form in my faithful heart,
There, like a pearl in the ocean cells,
Sacred from glance and from touch it dwells;
With tedious skill thou hast wrought a shade
Which chance may injure, and time must fade,
But mine, which was traced without endeavour,
Shall bloom in its guarded shrine for ever!

To be continued.

M.A.

POLAND.

Consequences of the Partition,-Causes of the Present Insurrection.

In a former number* we gave an authentic history of the secret as well as barefaced intrigues and acts of violence which ultimately led to the partition of Poland. Enough, we presume, was said to show that whether the motives which led to that political catastrophe were morally considered, or viewed in their influence on the social order established in Europe, nothing could tend in the remotest degree to their justification.

Within the last four or five centuries, the progress of civilization had gradually led nations to a tacit deference for each other's rights and independence; and formal compacts were in later times thought of to define and consecrate the laws by which Governments were to regulate their relations with one another. The observance of similar engagements was universally acknowledged to be as essential to the security and well-being of States, as the laws against piracy and highway robbery were for that of individuals. Catherine II. was the first European sovereign who took upon herself to violate the sacred duties prescribed by civilization, when, in the midst of profound peace, and without any just cause or grievance, she called on the Poles to give up to her their liberties,-and enforced her will. Others hastened to divide the spoil with her in a manner not unlike the rush of highway assassins when called by the whistle of their leader to help in the murder of a peaceable traveller. History affords instances of invasions, conquests, and subversions between people who had regularly gone to war with each other; but a political crime so deliberately conceived and treacherously executed as the partition of Poland has no precedent in its pages. The necessary consequences of that act have been a destruction of confidence between Governments, and the assumption of a right to dethrone Sovereigns whenever their more powerful neighbours might take a fancy to their territories. All moral engagements between them were broken, and it was proclaimed to the world that duty, friendship, confidence, and treaties were nothing between Sovereigns. All ties between crowned heads ceased to be considered sacred, and a kind of signal for the anarchy of Kings was given. And yet the very three great powers which gave this example, had presumed to find fault with the right assumed by the French to prescribe limits to the authority of their own Sovereign! They resolved to revenge the King of France, and probably would have done so in the same kind way in which they had undertaken to protect the rights of the Poles against themselves, had they not discovered somewhat to their cost that there they had to deal with a people who had the means of dispensing with their interference. In the same spirit did Russia pick up a quarrel with the Turks, and foment sedition among the Swedes. The first step once taken in this subversive system, nothing appeared capable of stopping its progress, and the Kings of Europe who had remained passive spectators of the original act of iniquity, soon began to perceive that dishonour and destruction threatened them all.

Muscovy, which did not figure in the original formation of the present European Governments, became one of the most preponderating among them by the overthrow of Poland. That country, together with Sweden and Turkey, had formed a barrier between Russia and civilized Europe, which it was the interest of all to keep up. But each of those States was attacked in succession, and with an obstinacy which their respective means could not resist when unassisted by others. The Turks have always, indeed, maintained the struggle with a courage worthy of a happier result. From their efforts, however, nothing but brute force could be expected. But Sweden might have done a great deal more, had Gustavus Adolphus or Charles XII. established a hereditary monarchy: with a suitable Constitution in Poland, that country would have been made the chief buckler of civilization against the attacks of Russian barbarism, in the same manner as Malta had long served to shield Christianity against Mahometan aggression.

In the New Monthly Magazine for January.

To the Russians, the partition of Poland was equivalent to an entire conquest, for all they aimed at was a direct contact with the central parts of Europe. On the side of the Baltic, the possession of Riga, Mittau, Courland, and Livonia cut off Sweden from all direct communication with the Continent, and destroyed all the important influence of that power. On the side of the Mediterranean, the possession of the Crimea, Podolia, and the free passage of the Dardanelles, afforded immense facilities towards the ultimate conquest of Constantinople, and the Peloponnesus. The immediate vicinity of Prussia and of Austria supplied abundant pretext for interference with the affairs of Germany. Thus the long chain of nations which held the Muscovite barbarians within their arid deserts as securely as ever the wall of China could have confined the Tartars to theirs, gradually became as obsolete as the latter.

It is hardly necessary to attempt to show the different influence of a conquest achieved in Europe by Russians, and one made by a civilized State. To be overrun by the masses of barbarous hordes, scattered over the wilds of Muscovy, would be a misfortune for civilization, which no irruption from Scythians, Goths, and Tartars, has ever equalled. Political rights, liberal institutions, sciences, arts, commerce, and every thing which tends to the glory and prosperity of nations and the happiness of the civilized portions of mankind, would soon give way under the oppressive yoke imposed by an innumerable race of savages. If we remember that one-third of the globe is already covered by them, that they inhabit an empire without limits, whose real weakness and strength have not been properly ascertained to the present day, we are bound to acknowledge that apprehension from such a quarter is far from being groundless. Alexander foresaw at the Congress of Vienna the risk he might be made to incur of foregoing the immense advantages that Russia had gained through the prostration of Poland. He therefore determined to anticipate discussion by abundant manifestations of solicitude for that country's political regeneration and future condition, and by the proposal of a plan which should give to some parts of Poland the semblance of national independence, without in the least shaking the hold till then maintained by Russia over that unfortunate country. It was, of course, on condition that the throne of the revived kingdom should be maintained hereditary in his race alone that the boon was to be granted; and in order to impose on the Poles a belief in the sincerity and disinterestedness of his intentions, he proposed the establishment of a Constitution which he himself drew up. He who declared himself the champion of civil liberty when his end was likely to be best answered by such a course, and subsequently became the chief supporter of the Holy-Alliance in order to enforce the favourite doctrine of despots on the divine rights of kings; such a man, we say, was not likely to give a Constitution to the Poles, with any earnest intention that they should enjoy freedom. He might have added a N.B. to this effect—“ All this conceded, provided my will and that of my delegates be always paramount," for such, in fact, was the purport of the Jesuitical arrière pensée with which he qualified his formal recognition of the engagements entered into with the Poles: upon the principle of the reserve have that unfortunate people been ruled ever since. A few of the outward forms prescribed by the Constitution have been from time to time observed with the view of keeping up the delusion imposed by that document; but its more essential provisions have been rendered nugatory. This system, which was adopted from the very moment when the Constitution was promulgated, was more particularly acted upon since the choice made of the Grand Duke Constantine to fill the duties of the King's representative. That man was born and bred a despot of the most arbitrary and unbending school. His notions of subordination and blind submission to military authority are the most exaggerated that any man has entertained in Europe for centuries past, his father perhaps alone excepted. His horror of political rights and constitutions is as extreme as the incapacity of his intellect to comprehend them. The man who never could understand how it was possible for a people en fracs to pre

This document has appeared in the United Service Journal for January.

sume to resist the ordinances of a bigoted and besotted old King, and to oppose a successful resistance to the military means employed to enforce them, surely never dreamt that the Poles under him should be governed on any principles in the least at variance with his own arbitrary will. A series of violations of the Constitution were the necessary and probably intended effects of the selection of such a man to preside over the Government of Poland. Arbitrary acts, of a nature almost incredible, were daily exercised, as if no limits had ever been prescribed to the official character with which he was invested; and, as in Russia, his capacity of Grand Duke alone always appeared to him to comprise the attributes of absolute power. Constantine had sense enough to relinquish a throne from which he foresaw that the natural ferocity of his disposition must soon cause his expulsion; but with an inconsistency of intellect which is hardly accountable, he was unable to perceive that the burthen of his presence was likely to prove still heavier over a people who were not taught to look upon it either as the consequence of a legitimate order of succession, or of a free choice. Among the innumerable specimens of Constantine's mode of ruling Poland with which we have been supplied, we have selected two cases, the particulars of which are likely to appear interesting to our readers, at the same time that they will serve to show that despot's character; we shall give them as nearly as possible in the narrator's own words, merely premising that he holds a rank and character which induce us to place the most implicit reliance on his authority.

"During one of those fine evenings of the month of June, which in some of the northern parts of Europe indemnify the inhabitants for the excessive length of the winter nights, I was returning from the villa of the Princess Sapiega, situated at a few leagues distance from Warsaw, where I had spent the day. I was so absorbed with the thoughts of some interesting occurrences to which I had been a witness, that I left my horse to guide himself entirely by his own instinct, and I did not awaken from my reverie until I found myself suddenly before the portal of the great burial-ground of Warsaw, situated a good deal beyond the gate by which it was my intention to enter. A bright moonlight enabled me to perceive at some distance a private carriage, drawn up close to the wall of the enclosure, and apparently waiting for some one within. I could not help being struck with the circumstance at such an hour, and suffering curiosity to get the better of the desire to retrace my steps, I tied the reins of my horse to the branch of a neighbouring tree, and proceeded in search of this midnight visitor of the dead. After wading some time through the labyrinth of monuments of departed grandeur, I came to a kind of tumulus, before which a woman, in a kneeling posture, was apparently performing some earnest act of devotion. She hastily rose on my sudden appearance, but, before she had time to conceal her face under the ample folds of a long black veil, which had been thrown over her shoulders, I recognized the beautiful Countess K——, whom I had frequently met at the house of one of her relations. It then occurred to my recollection, that when about to be introduced to the Countess, my introductor cautioned me against ever mentioning, in her presence, the name of Colonel S-, with whom I had been formerly acquainted, and who, I well knew, had been an intimate friend of her late husband. I had forgotten to inquire into the motive of this caution, but not doubting now that it bore a connexion with the object of this nocturnal excursion of the fair Countess, I could not repress the feeling of sympathy and curiosity which so romantic a rencontre awakened. After apologizing to the Countes: for interrupting her in the exercise of duties apparently of the most pious kind, observed that her grief must be deep-rooted indeed to conduct her hither alone and at such an hour. We walked slowly together for some minutes, and the lady, seemingly touched with the sympathizing tone in which I spoke to her, related to me the following particulars :

"You were acquainted with Colonel S, and you know that he was my husband's bosom friend. They travelled together in Spain, where my husband was taken ill and died. When he found that his dissolution would be the inevitable issue of his illness, he addressed a letter to me, in which he spoke of the affectionate attentions paid him by the Colonel during his sickness, and expressed a

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