The Press.
London, England, 1855-04-07 00:00:00

POLAND.

WHEN a Lord of the Treasury in addressing his con-
stituents speaks of restoring the ancient kingdom of
Poland, and when the First Lord of the Treasury
admits it to be a question of possible solution, a more
than common value is attached to a statement that,
in a manner, partakes of an official bearing. But
then immediately follows the postulate, of what spe-
cific restoration, and of what specific Poland, do these
words, calculated to raise hopes and aggravate ani-
mosity, truly treat? The Government, let it be called
the constitutional Government of the Poland of tri-
partite division, was depraved, corrupt in the extreme,
and not worthy of honour ; and the country so tyran-
nically dealt with by the three powers, without the
sanction of Europe, consisted of Poland proper, and
the principalities under the name of Poland, which
had been acquired by the sword, without any national
right. That division, or more strictly spoliation, of
the famous country has been generally judged to have
been the exclusive crime of Russia; but the idea,
however, originated with Frederick of Prussia, in
order to possess himself of the port of Dantzic, and
the coast of the Baltic, for commercial purposes.
The act emanated from a trading covetousness, kin-
dred to the class of which Messrs. Bright and Cobden
are members. Rendering all honour to the Poland
of old, and to the chivalry of her existing heroes, it
is not less unwise than improper, both for the sake
of the one and the other, to misstate historic events
and to overstate wrongs. Undue partiality converts
history into a romance, interesting but valueless.
Let the principal events of I'olish history be sum-
marily sketched.

The four great stock races of northern and western
Europe were the Schlaves, the Goths the Celts, and
the Finns. The Schlaves were subdivided into the
Wends, the Lekhs or Poles, the Czachs, the Croats,
the Serbs, the Lets or Lithuanians, the Bulgarians,
and the Russians. The Lekhs, Poles, or Polani, so
called from their fertile plains, fixed the centre of
their power first at Kruswitza, then at Gnesen, and
subsequently at Cracow. The country was formed
into a duchy by Lechus 1., A.D. 550, and assumed a
more distinct shape in $42, when Piastus, a peasant,
was elected to the ducal dignity. From this period
the practice of election to the supreme rule appears
to have been a principle of the constitutional system.
Nevertheless the Piast dynasty, by popular choice—in
virtue of their good deeds, by sterner means, or by
St. Albanic causes—retained possession of the throne
until the extinction of the male race in 1370. In
905, under Mieckeslaus 1., they abandoned Paganism,
and adopted Latin Christianity. This peculiar con-
version severed them effectually from their eastern
neighbours, the Russians, who, nearly at the same
period, and by the pressure of other policies, were in-
duced to accept the doctrines and the formula of the
Greek Church. This sectarian distinction sharpened
those fierce enmities which rarely display their
darkest characteristics save in the conflict that is said
to be waged for the express glory of the Most High.
Mieckeslaus, upon receiving Christian baptism, bad
consented to do homage as a vassal of the empire,
and, in reward for this submission, the royal crown
of Poland was conferred on his son, Boleslaus, the
Lion-hearted, by the Emperor Othcll., A.D. 1000.
For the three following centuries the history of the
country presents a varied account of invasion, revolt,
and conquest—not tending to civilise the nature of
the Schlave, if two common and authorised customs
of that race may be taken as an example, namely,
that of killing old men when arrived at decrepitude,
and the destroying children born, or said to be born,
imperfect. The obstetric judge incurred a fearful
responsibility, even if superior to a bribe, and an im-
patient heir might not have been free from suspicion
in his account of octogenarian incapacity. Ladislaus
11., A.D. 1300, an able and honest prince, by intro-
ducing salutary reforms, considerably ameliorated the
government, and his son, Casimir the Great, followed
out his father's policy, and, by a concentration of power,
emancipated the country from tributary vassalage to
the Holy Roman Empire. Thus was I'oland promi-
nently stationed amongst the independent States of
Europe. Casimir, the last of the Piast line, died
without male issue, and the crown passed by election
to his nephew, Lewis, King of Hungary. The affairs
of the nation were neglected by this monarch for the
superior interests of Hungary, and at his death the
Poles unanimously elected Hedwige, the daughter
of Casimir, to the vacant throne, A.D. 1370.
Ringold, a native Lithuanian chief, a man of talent,
acquirement, and bravery, tempered by a laudable
ambition, had collected together the rude masses of
the Schlsvo-Finnish tribes, and consolidated them
into a duchy of Lithuania, s.n. 1235. This lengthened
province commenced in a narrow slip of land on the
Baltic, and extended nearly to the shores of the
Black Sea. It interposed betwixt Poland and the
Grand Duchy of Novogorod, or Russia, originally
founded by Iturik, which had been subsequently
parcelled out and divided after the irruption of the
Mongolian Tartars in the thirteenth eenttuy. Tba
Lithuanians were heathens.