The relief of Vienna, in 1683, is the crowning glory of Sobieski. His subsequent campaigns were unsuccessful; for he had neither sufficient troops, nor money, nor provisions, nor artillery. Nor was he happy in his family. The great champion of Christendom was governed by his wife, and the nation sneered at his weakness. His ambition as a father led him to desire, during his lifetime, the election of his son as successor. Unable to accomplish this, he took to avarice, not a very respectable passion for a private man, but a very dangerous one for a prince. But in avarice he had able auxiliaries in his wife and the Jews. Every thing was venal; and the king grew rich, without growing happy. As a last resort, he tried retirement and letters. But the pursuit of letters, in itself intrinsically exalted, must be chosen in its own right, if happiness is to be won by it; to the disappointed statesman it is but a mere shield against despair; a sort of philosopher's robe to hide the ghastliness of sullen discontent. Sobieski found in the Latin classics, which he diligently read, no healing "medicine for the soul diseased;" and the atrabilious humours of his wife, and the torment of his station, and his mental discontent, all combined to hasten his death. He passed from this world on the same hour and the same day as his election. We have traced the progress of the infringements upon the royal authority; we have seen the election of the king decided by a faction in an oligarchy, by a rabble of noblemen, by the high aristocracy; the next election was decided by bribes. Two strong parties only appeared; the French, which declared for Conti, and the Saxon, which advocated the interests of the Elector Augustus. But the French ambassador had distributed all his money, while the Saxon envoy was still in Funds. So each party chose its own king; each made proclamation of its sovereign; each sung its anthem in the Cathedral; but the French party subsided, as soon as the primate, its chief support, could agree upon his price. Thus the Saxon elector prevailed. He was one of the most dissolute princes of the age; and an unbounded luxury and abandoned profligacy were introduced by him among the higher orders in Poland. The morals of the nobility now became nearly as bad as their political constitution. What need have we to dwell on the personal war which Augustus II. commenced against Charles XII. of Sweden; the defeats he sustained; his forced resignation of the crown; the appointment of Stanislaus in his stead; and his own restoration after the battle of Pultawa? The leading point in his history is this: that with him the Russian ascendency in Poland was established. All the rest of Europe was rapidly advancing in culture; the only change in Poland was the predominance of Russia.