smoke, rather than die of cold. Bad as these villages are, you may travel ten miles, even in the clear part of the country, without seeing one, or, indeed, beholding any human habitation. The small towns are considerably more comfortable; they consist almost uniformly of a square, with the town-house in the centre. The houses are built of wood, and seldom have more than one story; there is frequently a sort of piazza along the sides of the square, where small wares are exposed to sale. These towns seldom contain 2000 inhabitants, and some of them have only 200 or 300. The larger towns consist of brick houses, for the most part stuccoed or rough-cast, and are generally situated in the neighbourhood of a morass; both for the sake of defence, and the facility of procuring bricks. Nothing, our author says, can be conceived more dismal than the position of such a town, frequently in the midst of an immense plain, without a tree or any other object in sight. Stone quarries are so rare, that it is only in the chief cities we find any houses built of stone. War-` saw is irregularly laid out and constructed; there is no square, no regular street, and scarcely any open spaces. The streets are wretchedly paved; some of the palaces are large and well built, but they are now, almost all deserted, and exhibit an half ruinous appearance, with high grass growing in the courts. The nobles have either sold or deserted them, and live entirely on their estates in the country, or resort in the winter season to the capitals of the powers within whose division their properties lie. Since the partition, the population of Warsaw is supposed to have decreased one half; its inhabitants are now reckoned at 50,000. The suburb of Praga consists chiefly of huts like those already described, with a few houses of a better description.

The common inns are still more wretched, in proportion, than the hovels of the natives. They consist, indeed, chiefly of the stable, where, during the summer, the inhabitants and travellers. sleep, almost promiscuously with the cattle. The house generally enters from one end of the stable, and is described as more filthy than any thing which an inhabitant of this country can picture to himself: The better sort of inns have one or two rooms, generally without any other furniture than a chair and a table, with a small couch, on which the traveller may spread his bedding. They are almost all kept by Jews; and Mr Burnett-complains of their impositions, and of the general expense of travelling, having paid twenty guineas from Dantzie to Warsaw, about two hundred English miles, for a carriage with three horses, and all other expenses on the road. When the nobles travel, they endeavour to stop at each other's country-houses, and when obliged to use the inns, they carry almost every accommodation with them.

The provisions most easily to be met with are, poultry, eggs, milk and whisky. Prices are said to have been raised more than double since the partition; and Mr Burnett is certainly right in stating, that the quantity of money in circulation must have greatly augmented during this period. The best butcher's meat costs threepence a pound;-formerly, that is sixteen years ago, it used to cost only a penny, or, at most, three halfpence. Count Zamoyski having taken over several English mechanics to settle with him, one of these told our author that he found, after six months trial, he could live for one half the expense which nearly the same style of living cost him in England; and Mr Burnett asserts, that he might have done it for still less. It is obvious, that, in many essential circumstances, Poland resembles the United States of America. They are both great agricultural countries, abounding in cheap and fertile land, with a population but thinly scattered over woods only begun to be cleared. In both countries we may expect to find rude produce, or articles in the first stages of manufacture sufficiently cheap; but articles of more finished manufacture are only to be procured by importation, and bear a high price accordingly. In both countries, though with very different degrees of rapidity, the population is increasing, the foreign trade augmenting, and the cultivation of the land following the rise of price which all sorts of produce, in consequence of the increased trade and population, undergo, and tending in its turn to check that rise of price. In both countries, the wealthy poprietors residing on, and superintending the management of their estates, and possessing a great superfluity of the necessaries of life, addict themselves to an inelegant and profuse hospitality; with this difference, however, that the very equal division of property, and the prevalence of political distinctions, fills the palace of the Polish noble with a great crowd of dependants, while the same kind of hospitality is more generally diffused, and exchanged on more equal terms among the American landholders. The most interesting part of the notices contained in Mr Burnett's work refer to the general topics which we have just

now run over.

un

Almost every article of manufacture is imported, and the greater part, are either really, or nominally, English. Our author having occasion to buy a hat at Lemburg, found the name and ticket of a well known London hatter on it, though he perceived plainly that it was of foreign manufacture. The prices of all such articles are, of course, exceedingly high, about one half higher than in London. The names of many even of the most ordinary articles, are evidently foreign, a hat is kapelusz, (pronounced capelloosh), ink atrounent, an ink-stand kalamarz, a can

ilestick

dlestick lichtarz, a plate talerz. And when Poles, above the lower orders, are conversing in their own language upon such topics as fashions, the fine arts, &c. they naturally and insensibly change from Polish to French, without interrupting the course of a single sentence. Almost the whole retail trade of the interior is in the hands of Jews, who are estimated, Mr Burnett says, at two millions. They carry on the traffic with the indefatigable activity peculiar to their race. A stranger, says our author, no sooner arrives at his inn, than he is beset by the inferior Jews, who act as emissaries to the shopkeepers. They enter his room without ceremony, and watch every motion and look, until they have caught him, and led him away to the shop of their employers.

The rent and price of land is extremely low. A farm of several thousand acres will let for 2007. or 2501. sterling ;-but more depends, of course, on the number of the peasants than the extent. The estate of one nobleman, consisting of 5000 square miles, is worth about 50,000/. Sterling a year. A rich manufacturer of earthen ware, paid 2000/. for an estate of about 2000 acres, half of which is in wood; it had a good house of several rooms, with a large garden and pleasure grounds well enclosed.

The wealth of the powerful nobles is enormous ;-Prince Czartoryski, and his son-in-law Count Zamoyski, possess together domains equal to half of England in extent. The quota of the former used to be 20,000, that of the latter 10,000 men, in the times of the republic. The great nobles live surrounded by others of the same class, but possessed of no fortune, and dependent upon their wealthy brethren for subsistence. Their houses are likewise filled with persons, chiefly foreigners, in their employment, as artists, with secretaries, and other agents above the rank of servants, with farmers of the better order, and a constant assemblage of visitors. The house of a nobleman is likewise full of servants, of whose characters our author gives us an unfavourable opinion. The following extracts will shew a little more nearly the features of that rude hospitality which distinguishes the style of living in this country, arising clearly from its feudal manners and abundance of ordinary articles of consumption.

It is rare in a large houfe, that one fits down to dinner and fupper with a lefs company than thirty or forty perfons. At the palace of the Prince Czartoryski, I apprehend that fcarcely ever lefs than fifty perfons dine in the hall-a number which is very frequently augmented to a Ff3 hundred,

See p. 135, 136-272-274, and 279.

hundred, a hundred and fifty, and even three hundred. To fit down alone, with his wife and a friend, perhaps, would be intolerable to a Pole. And when an Englishman, or other perfons who might have. been in this country, have mentioned to a liftening company the custom of England in this particular-and that even persons of the first con fequence both for rank and wealth, would often fit down to dinner, fimply a man and wife, or accompanied by a single friend-they have all exclaimed, with the utmost aftonifhment, Ab! comme il eft triftehow melancholy!" p. 308. 309.

< Thefe (ordinary wines) are the only drinks in ordinary use, even by the nobles themselves. When they wish for a different fort of wine, claret is the most ufual, a bottle of which is placed near them, and of which they commonly invite fome one or more to take part; it cannot be all. This is rather a ticklish time for the fubalterns, in whofe countenances may be commonly obferved no very fublime conflict of feelings, between their wish to applaud every act of their fuperior, and their ob vious jealoufy and envy of the favoured individual. The nobles, I have not the flighteft doubt, not unfrequently debar themselves from fuch luxuries in public, that they may avoid exciting a mutual jealousy among thofe in their service.

On gala days, a few glaffes of champagne are drunk, at the close of dinner. Other French wines are occafionally produced, and are in the cellars of most of the nobility; but, on account of the number there would be to partake, they very rarely appear. They are met with only in small and private parties. English bottle-porter is also a rarity, as it ftands in Poland at the high price of a guinea per dozen.

In these large establishments and parties, it would be unreasonable and even abfurd to expect the utmost elegance or comfort, and for very obvious reasons. In fmaller families and parties, there is no want either of the one or of the other. Things are always better cooked, and nicer in all refpects. " p. 209-211.

The children of the nobles are educated, for the most part, in their families, where they are provided with the requifite mafters. In the times of the republic, the princes and nobles of large fortune educated alfo in their houses a great number of the children of their needy brethren; and their palaces ufually contained schools, like thofe of our Englifh bishops in times paft. The Prince Czartoryski had formerly, at all times, a confiderable number of boys and young men at his court, all of whom he provided with board, clothing, and education, and af terwards fituations in life. One day in the week was called the flogging day, on which each offender received the chaftifement for misdemeanours committed during the preceding fix. In Warfaw, fuch was the pomp of former Polish manners, that the princefs, when she went abroad, was attended by twenty of thefe young men at once, all on horseback, and who ftrove to outvie each other in vigilant attention and chivalrous gallantry. It was a point of politenefs always contefted with peculiar zeal, who fhould be foremoft in handing her highnefs out of her carriage, and in helping her to afcend.' p. 301. 302.

• During

During the time of dinner, the lofty and magnificent hall is abfolutely crowded with fervants; among whom may be discovered several Coffacks, with their long whiskers, and in their military uniform. Every person of confequence, too, has his own footman behind his chair, in his peculiar livery; the whole forming a spectacle which forcibly carries back the mind to the pompous periods of feudal grandeur. The fervants, on all occafions, are very numerous; I once counted twelve waiting at a dinner-table, at which there were only eight perfons dining. There might not possibly have been more, had there been triple the number in company. P. 223-24.

• The accommodations in the wings of the Polish manfions are not perhaps quite correfpondent with the elegance of the faloons and beft apartments. Each wing may be confidered as a very long house, not lofty, though, with the attic, it has occafionally two stories above the ground floor. Through the centre, longitudinally, on each floor, extends a common paffage, into which the several doors, on both fides, of the diftin&t chambers, open. According to the more ancient plan, however, there is a range, in the front of the building, of several common (ufually ftone) ftair-cafes, each of which leads, on each floor, to a room both on the right and left; fimilarly to what is found in colleges, the inns of court, and the houses of Edinburgh.

The apartments themselves are remarkable neither for ornament, for furniture, nor comfort. They are adapted, in general, for fingle perfons; more rarely for two. Their common dimenfions are those of a pretty good-fized bed-room, and may be from 12 to 15 feet by 10 or 12. If defigned for two, they may be ftill larger; or this enlargement may be produced by a confiderable recefs on one fide. The floor of each, though inlaid with inferior workmanship, can scarcely be expected, when the number is fo great, to be kept fhining and beautiful, as thofe of the best rooms. It is therefore merely dufted, and occafionally wafhed; in which ftate it has no advantage over a common deal floor. The walls, in the oldest houfes, are fimply white-washed, without any fort of ornament.' p. 168-69.

The farmers are generally dependants of the proprietor, who, having performed fervice as fecretaries, or lived as companions with him, or married fome dependent female of his family, are rewarded with leafes of part of the estates not in the immediate occupation of the noble. Their mode of living is thus described by Mr Burnett.

The houses of the farmers are commonly built of wood, and have merely the ground floor. On the exterior, they are, in every point of view, humble, very often mean in appearance: the interior is occafionally fomewhat better,-though an Englishman looks in vain for any thing like comfort. There are ufually two or three ordinary rooms, white-wafhed, though one only ferves, for the most part, as a fittingThe floors are fometimes of earth only, but more frequently planched. A bed almost always ftands in every room, fometimes, though

room.

Ff4