The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-12 00:00:00

FROM ITALY TO POLAND.

(From the Datly .Mws.)
The following letter from the celebrated Venetian
poet, Dail 'Ongaro, to a friend in this country, has
been placed in our hands for publication :

Florence, Feb. 4, 1863.

My dear Friend,—ln the midst of so many con-
tradictory rumours as to the character and scope of
the present movement in Poland, I have been led to
make anxious inquiries of the emigres of that un-
fortunate country. They are as much in the dark
as we are ourselves. But they appear somewhat
disheartened, and despairing of a happy issue to the
cause of liberty. To them Czarism is still the all in
all ; and seeing that the French Government is at
present on the best of terms with Russia, these
gentlemen are too well disposed to repeat the old
and sad historic exclamation, Finis Polonice. It
looks as though the Polish exiles, like the exiles of
all lands, were determined to put their trust only in
" the Emperor," and in whatsoever he may mean
to do.

So in default of living testimony I have taken
counsel with the dead. At Brussels I knew the
Father, the Cato of the Polish emigration, Joachim
Lelewel, Count or Prince, General or President of
some sort : I would give him his title if I knew it.
I knew him as a working man. He owned a couple
of blouses, one for summer wear, and both at once
for the long winter months. Somewhere in a box,
however, he kept an old threadbare coat, which he
reserved for the annual commemoration of the
Polish martyrs. I knew him for a man of learning,
and an artist. He would draw up memoranda for
writers who came to consult him upon obscure
passages in ancient history, or disputed points of
ancient geography. He was his own hands, and I
fancy he transferred with his own hands to the
plate the medallions which he drew to illustrate his
great Numismatic work on Ancient Gaul. Ever
accessible to all comers in his pauper's garret, which
was also his workshop (Rue de l'Ecuyer—l forget
the number), he would chide us gently if we
knocked at his door before we came in. He had
written on that door, which was always ajar, Come
in without knocking, lest, absorbed as he was in his
work, he might fail to hear a knock, and leave a
visitor for a moment waiting. .

Pray do not suppose, however, that this compa-
rative destitution was a reproach to his wealthier
countrymen. Several of them had tried all manner
of honourable and delicate ways to place consider-
able sums at his disposal; hut he always refused.
By regular work he could earn the few pence he
needed for his lodging and his maintenance. King
Leopold offered him the situation of Director of the
Belgian Museum, with a salary of 4,000 francs.
Lelewel went to see the Museum, and replied to his
Majesty that as the whole contents of the Museum
were not worth a thousand francs, he felt bound to
decline an appointment which could not justify its
cost. To the offer of a professorship of Belgian his-
tory he made a similar reply. Some time after a
noble-hearted Flemish gentleman left him by will
an income for life, which he refused to accept be-
cause he said it belonged to the natural heirs; and
when the next heir of the deceased confirmed the
legacy, Lelewel went himself into court to plead
against his own life•interest under the will. How
the matter ended I cannot say. On my arrival in
Florence in 1859 I endeavoured to induce the Tus-
can Government to invite Lelewel to Florence, to
lend his aid to the Italian savants who preside over
our rich collections. The affair was under consi-
deration—too long; for meanwhile Lelewel died in
his garret at Brussels. I had hoped that the sun
of Italy and the dayspring of our new liberties
might have prolonged his future days, to the profit
of science and to the honour of our coantry. It was
too late.
Pardon me, my dear friend, for all these details
and this long digression. I wanted you to know the
manner of the man before I gave you the words I
once heard him utter on those Polish revolutions of
1830, which tore him from his studies and elected
him a member of the Provisional Government. One

day when I was dining in his company at the house
of a veteran Italian refugee, the conversation fell
naturally enough on the revolution of 1830. The
great Polish exile's eyes seemed to dilate and g'ow
with unaccustomed lustre : he was no longer the
savant, but the chief of that historic insurrection
which was drowned in blood. He said but a few
words, but those words are stamped upon my me-
mory, and I seize this occasion of recalling them.
"The Polish revolution (he said) failed for three
principal reasons—First, because the revolutionary
forces were concentrated at Warsaw ; secondly, be-
cause the aristocratic leaders and the general mis-
trusted the popular element and shrank from its
alliance; lastly, because no appeal was made to the
Cossacks, proclaiming their independence." Old
Mazeppa, he added, would have understood
me. The Cossacks bear no love to the Czar ; they
have no liking for hangmen's work ; they are
oppressed like ourselves ; they have a country like
ourselves. We should have taken in earnest and
largely applied the device of Poland—" For our
lzberty and for yours" Lelewel was sublime as he
uttered these words; he was prophetic. I should
add, that he was no great believer in the inten-
tions of France, and no wonder ! He had small
faith in any movement not begun by patriots living
in the country. He trusted that the voice of
humanity and of liberty would be heard sooner or
later in the Russian army itself, and that the double
bureaucracy, military and civil, which weighs on
Russia would at length weary out the entire nation.
All this was said before the war in the Crimea,
before the death of the Czar Nicholas.
His words, it would seem, have not fallen to the
ground. Lelewel's counsels, repeated continually
to every Pole, to every Russian who would not leave
Brussels without paying his respects to the vener-
able Cato of 1831, are prevailing at the present
moment. The insurrection is working from the cir-
cumference to the centre. Several Russian officers
have listened to the voice of the Bell.* The Cos-
sacks themselves, if the despatches speak true, have
given signs of national life and a sympathy for the
Polish cause. It is to be hoped that the chiefs of
the insurrection will not forget the popular ele-
ment ; and the brethren of the revolution will not
again be at the mercy of some of those generals
who have done nothing but arrange with more or
less skill the clauses of a capitulation. To learn
nothing, to forget nothing, is the device of de-
throned kings ; nations should remember their
faults, and learn everything from experience.
Thus much, my dear friend, the dead have told
me. Will their words come true ? Will they prove
more discerning than the living whom I have con-
sulted. Events must 'timer. The die is cast. But
come what may, we will never cry Finis Polonice.
Nations do not die. Eight is immortal. The com-
mon sympathy that binds all struggling causes and
suffering peoples is a cheering sign.
Let us hope, then, End do our duty. Faccere et
pati fortia.: Let us die like martyrs; not mumb-
ling litanies in churches, but sword in hand, hold-
ing inch by inch that sacred ground which is ours
to defend-. PALL 'ONOARO.