the new king's hand, or sign decrees, on which they were not invited to deliberate. Polish politics established the rule, that none but nobles were citizens. While the general diet thus received its character as the representation of the nobility, elected in the provincial assemblies, another body now gradually assumed an active existence. The highest civil and religious officers of the kingdom formed a senate; and they were constituted members, not because they were great proprietors, but in consequence of the office, to which they had been named by the king. Casimir was succeeded by his three sons. Under the first, John Albert, the power of the oligarchy was confirmed, and not a semblance of an independent prerogative remained to the crown. Under Alexander, it was further decreed by the diet, that nothing should in future be transacted, except _communi consensu_. The nobility had already usurped all the sovereign authority; they now in their zeal to confirm their usurpations, introduced the ambiguous clause, which was afterwards to be perverted to their own ruin. A dismal inadvertence failed to insert, that the will of the majority should be binding; and hence it became possible at a later day to interpret the law, as investing each deputy with a tribunicial authority. Under Sigismund, the third son of Casimir, all attempts to restore the royal authority were futile. The equality of the nobles was established by law;--yet a portion of them already began to look with contempt on their less wealthy peers, and would gladly have separated themselves from the great mass of "the plebeian nobility." With Sigismund Augustus, the son of Sigismund, the race of the Jagellons expired. At that time, Poland was still powerful; the Prince of Stettin and the Prince of Prussia were its vassals; the palatines of Wallachia and Moldavia owed allegiance to it; the Duke of Courland did it homage; Livonia was incorporated among its territories. Nothing but a government was wanting to render it one of the most brilliant states of Europe. Copernicus had already rendered it illustrious in science; and, in no part of Europe was the knowledge of the Latin language so generally diffused. Now that the royal dynasty was at an end, the succession to the throne, which had hitherto been in part hereditary, became necessarily elective. But no forms had been prescribed for the occasion. It was not known who were the rightful depositaries of power during the interregnum, nor who were possessed of a voice in the election of king. At length the right of convoking the diet was assigned to the primate, and the elective franchise was decided to appertain in an equal degree to each of the nobles, without the intervention of electors.