till the issue of the badly written and badly printed feuilleton of to-morrow. Contrast the effect on the reading public, with what the same writers might produce, if they were allowed to construct a careful frame work, and were at liberty to weave a tale abounding in scenes of kind communication among the dramatis personae, of innocent stratagems, of hallowed love, of humorous situations, of opposing and tangled interests to be reconciled; and the result leaving the reader's mind in a healthy state, either of satisfaction, or even of melancholy, if this last cannot be shunned. Had we our will of the man who first imagined the possibility of a feuilleton, we would in the first place enclose him in a badly furnished room, but with transparent walls. The scenery abroad should be diversified with close-cropt lawns overshadowed by old trees, a comfortable breakfast room with tea table, &c. ready, a cheerful prospect through a fine country, and a dissolving view of a Theatre where The Rivals is about to be performed. Before him should be seated the writer of a villanous Holywell-street penny periodical, in a convict's unpicturesque dress,and this individual should be employed reading bits of the worst written feuilletons that have ever appeared, and always taking up a new one, when he is just near the tremendous crisis in the old one. Children are gambolling in the free air and sunshine abroad, and beckoning him to come join. them, but he cannot the hard crystalline barrier is there, and he must listen to the harsh voice of his tormentor. He sees his friends in the dress circle, enjoying Sir Anthony's inconsistencies, and making him signs to come share their pleasantry, but he is powerless, and still the croaking voice flays his ears. Now, his family and a friend or two are taking a drive through the fine landscape spread before him, and wondering he does not join them; and finally, when his throat is parched, and eyes red, and the refreshing tea-cups, and the society of wife and children are only severed from him by the space of a few feet, he must still look on the sensual, grovelling features of the Devil's tool before him, and list to his maddening jargon. (Forty-eight hours of this regimen would be sufficient punishment.) Something like the cause mentioned above has, in the present instance, marred an interesting tale; and to bring about a catastrophe desirable in the eyes of the writers, the heroine is deprived of all title to common sense in the earlier part of the work. Our extracts and outline will convey no idea of the strong hold which the story takes on the reader, except that he is first interested for the recovery of the vagrant fair one, by her affianced, and by and by, it is the very last thing he would desire. The character of the capricious, talented poet whose passion for the disguised lady is as much a matter of fancy as of feeling, and his fury when he hears of the approaching union of Irene and Raymond are well displayed. Our space has not permitted us to enter much into the serious or descriptive portion of the narrative, but we are not afraid of referring our readers to the original, which, excepting a few slightly irreverent expressions, and the entire absence of the religious element, is unobjectionable in language and matter. ART. VI.-POLONIA REDUX-A STEADFAST ALLY. Lettre à l'Empereur Napoleon III, September 20th, 1854, Paris, 1854. * The author of a brochure published in France, entitled A Letter to the Emperor, Napoleon III. 20th September, 1854, expresses with good reason his surprise that, in the embarrassed state of the affairs of Europe, the sole means capable of assuring a solid peace has not been proposed, and that there has been no question, in the projects of diplomacy, of the re-establishment of Poland, with its ancient territorial limits, and political independence. It does not admit of doubt that the re-construction of Poland lurks in the minds of all European nations, and is, even more, their earnest, though secret hope; but the difficulties which beset the execution of such a project cause it to be set aside for a season, and reserved for a favorable opportunity. It is but natural that the spoliators who have outraged the law of nations, and who Subjoined is a list of the ancient possessions of Poland, containing the dates of the various dismemberments of that country in the space of five hundred and forty-eight years. A.D. 1298 Part of Pomerania, annexed to Germany. 1335 Silesia, added to the Dukedom of the Piasts. 1479 The Duchies of Novogorod and Pskow, for the benefit of Russia. 1484 The littoral territory of the Black Sea, for the aggrandizement of Turkey. 1515 Polish Ducal-Prussia, for that of the house of Brandenburg. 1660 Livonia, to the profit of Sweden, and later to that of Russia. 1686 The Duchies of Smolensk, Tschernigow, and Kiow, annexed to Russia. 1770 The Starostie of Spiz (Zips), annexed to Austria. 1772 Dismemberments by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Do. do. Russia, and Prussia. Russia, Austria, and Prussia. 1815 Russia, Prussia, and Austria. 1846 The Republic of Cracow, for the benefit of Austria. And, at this day, the territory of the ancient Polish Republic invaded by Russia contains 19,000,000 of inhabitants, the portion seized by Prussia 6,000,000, and by Austria 5,000,000, giving a total of 30,000,000 of men, whose patriotic spirit has never ceased aspiring to an independent national existence. still find their account in a continuance of guilt, should be averse to mend their evil ways, or to dispossess themselves of the advantages, precarious though these are, which perseverance in their iniquity may yield them. Europe, indifferent, in former times, to the fall of a nation which had existed for ages, its buckler for long centuries against the invasions of the barbarian, and insensible, through ignorance, of its salvation from Mogul, and Tartar, and Tark, by the strong arm of Polish chivalry, pays at this hour the penalty of its culpable apathy in the past towards the destinies of Poland. Henry the Pious, of the valiant race of the Piasts, falling at Liegnitz in 1241; Wladislas the Third, of the illustrious blood of the Jagellons, expiring at Warna in 1444; John-Albert struggling in the Bukovine in 1497; Zolkiewski dying in Moldavia in 1620; Chodkiewicz at Chocim in 1621; Czarniecki combatting in the Ukraine in 1664; John Sobieski, the saviour of Christendom, under the walls of Vienna in 1683; how have they toiled and bled for Europe, Europe, half ignorant of, and wholly ungrateful for, their priceless services! Yet the memory of these soldiers of the cross and of civilization yields in nothing to that of the Cid, of Charles Martel, of Ferdinand, or of Isabella. The perils of the 19th century are the punishment of the indifference of the 18th. Poland is gone; Europe remains. Mogul and Turk no longer threaten; but in exchange for the old barbarians, we have the new. Where is that Polish nation, warlike and inured to fatigue, where is that sole and only nation, whose geographical position and chivalrous spirit might oppose an impassable barrier to that new form of barbarism, which the ambition of Russia now unveils to our fears? Living nearly in the same climate as the Russians, accustomed to the same privations, a prey to the same intemperate seasons, (ever oscillating between rigorous cold and humidity) the Poles are specially fitted to combat their neighbours, the Russians, whom they cannot but hate with something more than hatred, on account of the repeated invasions of their country, followed by so long a period of oppression. Zealous Catholics, for centuries, the Poles have seen their religion trampled under foot by their schismatic oppressors, their church establishment abolished, their pastors and their most respectable citizens exiled to Siberia, their laws abrogated, their liberties ravished from them, their native language, whose written literature dates from the 12th century, banned and forbidden. It has been only by ranging the numerical strength of three empires against one, that the Russians have succeeded, by force of intrigues and secret machinations, in destroying the barrier which separates them from Europe, in the hope of speedily retaking from Austria and Prussia, in right of the specious title of King of Poland, assumed at the congress of Vienna in 1815, such portions of the unhappy country as had been allotted to those powers. On the other hand, certainly it will not be by augmenting the power of Austria at the expence of Poland, nor in aggrandizing that German superfoetation, Prussia, nor by the aid of Germany, undermined as it is by Russian influence, that a barrier can be established against the Muscovite empire. That barrier, which Austria and Prussia, themselves the first menaced with danger, have been so unpardonably short-sighted as to destroy, for the sole benefit of Russia, ought to be compact, complete in itself, and thus capable of resisting the colossus of the North, and Poland alone can furnish the materials for its construction. An independent existence of thirteen centuries, a cultivated language in actual usage, and distinct from that of Russia, a distinct religion too, which unites Poland by the sympathies of faith to western Europe, and an oppression before its time unheard of for iniquity, separate her far even from her mortal and eternal enemies. If there were no living Poland to demand its freedom, it would be necessary to invent one. But we must not cherish the expectation of seeing Poland rise spontaneously to a man. Betrayed by his neighbours, always abandoned by Europe, can we suppose that the Pole, the Joseph of nations, sold by his brethren, would have the folly to sacrifice what little respite from misery may be accorded him, his blood, his life, his children, his honour, and all this only to pay the penalty, in the deserts of Siberia, of his chivalrous devotion to the cause of humanity? No, Poland, abandoned so often by England and France, at first under George the Third, Louis the Fifteenth, and Louis the Sixteenth, and after by the French Republic, which counted Polish legions in its ranks; betrayed by the fortunes of Napoleon the First, forsaken by the Restoration, sacrificed by Louis Philippe, who stirred up the Poles to revolt, in order to secure for himself the throne of France, and arrest by a seasonable diversion the shock of Prussia, then on the point of attacking France, instigated, misunderstood, and abandoned by the soi-disant |