from the Western Powers, all deceitful and calculating sympathy, all cheap eloquence, all those guarantees which men have decorated with the pompous title of ‘rights of peoples,’ and then boldly to give herself to Russia. ‘Go to the Tzar, and say to him: We come to you, as to the most generous of our foes; hitherto, we have belonged to you, as slaves, by right of conquest, and from terror; to-day, we come to you as free men, who have the courage to acknowledge that they have been conquered.... We do not stipulate with you about conditions--to yourself we leave it to judge when you may relax towards us the severity of your law. We make no reserve; but in our hearts, in letters of fire, you will read our silent prayer, this single petition, “Do not leave unpunished the crimes which strangers have committed; and in the blood of our brethren which has been shed, hear the Slave blood, which cries for vengeance” ...’ In words like these, one can recognise a theorist, who is inflamed with panslavism, and whose revenge anticipates the day, when by this fusion, this sacrifice of the idea of national independence, this moral suicide, the Polish race may revive in the Empire, and again, through their intelligence, find an ascendency in the Council. What the Marquis Wiélopolski had thought in 1846 he still thought in 1861; and he therefore kept himself apart from all attempts to warm up the thought of nationality, as also from all the practical labours which were to bring about a patient and invisible reorganisation of his country; and he never would become a member of the Agricultural Society. The Marquis now entered on his official career distinguished by all the inflexible vigour of a character which was lofty and proud enough to brave unpopularity among his countrymen; and, while he consented to serve Russia, he did not the less preserve a haughty attitude towards her. In the month of February, while agitating for the adoption of his proposed address, he got a message from Prince Gortchakof, warning him to take care of what he was about; he proudly replied, ‘Tell the Prince that my boxes are filled, and that I am quite ready to start for Siberia.’ To his compatriots he would say, ‘You are not at the height necessary for understanding me.’ To the Russians he certainly appeared an enigma; for they could not comprehend this Polish gentleman, who, while a nobody in the ranks of the administration, suddenly became a minister, who refused all interposition, and who treated directly with the Emperor. What could such a man mean? What was the clue to his thoughts? But it can be believed how, between Poles and Russians, he occupied a solitary and difficult post; for the first had the greatest antipathy to his ideas, and the second looked upon him as a phenomenon rather more extraordinary than consolatory.