thinks it is probable that such an event took place, and consequently assumes that it did take place. On the other hand, we have it on the authority of Matthew Paris that in the year 1209 a large body of students transferred themselves from Oxford to Cambridge, and Mr. Rashdall finds himself sorely perplexed to understand the reason of their going there. În order to enhance the antiquity of his own university, he assumes the occurrence of a migration of which we have no evidence; in order to postpone the origin of the university at Cambridge, he ignores conditions the absence of which, by his own confession, renders a recorded migration thither unintelligible. In order to make an imaginary migration probable, he minimises the pre-existing culture of his own university; in order to make a migration, respecting which there can be no question, the first beginning of all culture at Cambridge, he ignores altogether the pre-existing conditions there. Again, his scornful epithet of marsh town' shows how completely he misapprehends the natural features which invited residence in those remote times. If Hugh, the historian of Peterborough, who is said to have visited Oxford in the same year as Archbishop Theobald, had been asked his opinion of the Fenland, his account might have induced Oxford to forestall its migration by half a century. To him this marsh land' seemed an eminently attractive region. Let us listen to his description. He declares it to be very necessary for men; for there are found wood and 'brushwood for fires, hay for the fodder of cattle, thatch for covering houses, and many other useful things. It is, 'moreover, productive of birds and fishes. For there are 'there various rivers, and very many waters and ponds ' abounding in fish. In all these things the district is most 'fertile.' St. Guthlac, in fact, according to his biographer, was much troubled to find in this region a retreat sufficiently gloomy for his ascetic notions. As for Cambridge itself, it was practically a seaport. All around Ely stretched a vast but shallow bay of the sea, six times larger than the Wash, amid which rose islands prolific in all the chief essentials for the life that now is and themselves centres of worship for the life to come. 'God,' says Hugh, had raised those 'islands for the special purpose that they should be the 'habitation of His servants.' The great monasteries of Ramsay, Thorney and Ely, more especially, were centres of learning. Of the services which Peterborough, on the western confines of the bay, rendered to history it is not here necessary to tell. What Cambridge was, before the Oxford

·

migration or the coming of the Friars,' we may, however, briefly venture to recall. Situated on the southern borders of the waters, guarded by the Norman castle on the hill, with its priory of Augustinian Canons at Barnwell and its Hospital of St. John, a community of regular canons, on the site where St. John's College now stands, with its great Roman road stretching north and south and ensuring constant intercourse with the world without, it must have seemed no unfit centre to which to invite the seekers after learning to repair. Within a few miles, and easily reached by boat, stood Ely, described by Henry III. himself as 'the best 'fortress in our realm,' from whence the learned and discerning Bishop Eustace watched with paternal care over the fortunes of the poorly endowed Hospital at Cambridge-the foundation on which he bestowed that same living of Horningsea which still remains in the gift of St. John's College. Altogether it would be difficult to show that if it were the design of the migrators to found a new university in some centre commanding an altogether different area from Oxford, they could have selected a site which had more to recommend it than Cambridge; while if we suppose them to have been seeking a sphere of labour where local and neighbouring foundations, together with the proximity of an important cathedral city, had already prepared the way, it is certain that Cambridge offered advantages which might well seem to outvie those of any other town east of Watling Street.

But here it is necessary to bring to a termination our notice of Mr. Rashdall's volumes. We have ventured upon a few strictures, but these, it need hardly be said, leave the main value of his labours unaffected; and every student desirous of becoming familiar with the institutions and fortunes of the greatest universities of mediæval times will find in these pages an amount of information afforded by no other writer on the subject.

ART. V.-The Journal of Countess Françoise Krasinska, Great-Grandmother of Victor Emanuel. Translated from the Polish by KASIMIR DZIEKONSKA. Chicago: 1896.

THIS HIS curious little volume, the authenticity of which we have been at some pains to verify, comes to us from America, the only other translation being in French. In this, which is free and fluent, occasional expressions betray that Mr. Kasimir Dziekonska, if indeed a Pole, has lived and learned in the United States. But the task of rendering into another language the frank outspoken utterances of a young girl-as frank in some instances as Marie Bashkirtseff herself-has been done, as it seems to us, with great success.

The diary of a Polish lady of high degree, written a hundred and fifty years ago, could hardly fail to be instructive, as throwing light on the customs and prejudices existing in her country at that time. Poland may be said to have been still two hundred years behind the rest of Europe; the mirror we look into is of steel, not Venice glass, polished as is the surface presented by the upper classes. In the pages before us we see the almost feudal barbarism in which the great nobles lived, combined with the grace and charm distinguishing their social intercourse. This book, therefore, has a double value. It is, first, a 'human document,' delineating with extraordinary frankness the vanity, the ambition, the passion, but also the unselfishness and tenderness that go to make up the remarkable character of the young writer. Secondly, it is a picture, Holbeinesque in its fidelity, of the feudal state in which a great Polish nobleman lived in the last century, when elsewhere such conditions of life had long since become impossible.

Before we begin this curious narrative, which touches one of the historical characters of the time, it may be well to refresh the reader's memory as to the actual condition of Poland before its dismemberment. The country, with its elective crown, held an unique, but by no means happy, position, being a prey to secret intrigues from foreign Courts -notably those of France and Russia-each advancing a different candidate for the throne, each striving to obtain ascendency in its counsels. The father-in-law of Louis XV., Stanislas Leczinski, after first being supported and then abandoned by the French arms, had fled the country in order

VOL. CLXXXIV. NO. CCCLXXVII.

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to save his head, upon which the Russians had set a price. His successor, Augustus III., Elector of Saxony, was the father of the Dauphine of France, a lady universally beloved and respected. His illegitimate brother, Maurice of Saxony, was the first general and favourite hero of the French people. Now, the Saxon party in Poland desired that Augustus's son, the Duke of Courland-a prominent figure in this diary -should succeed his father. His interests were, therefore, naturally supported, in outward appearance, by the French Court. But the King's cousin, the Prince de Conti, at the instigation of certain Polish magnates, and with Louis's secret approval, had enrolled himself among the aspirants for the throne, at the next election. These complicated and antagonistic interests involved a tortuous policy on Louis's part, whose secret correspondence on the subject is a curious revelation of double-dealing. That Augustus, whose declining health rendered it probable that the throne would shortly be vacant, was partially aware of these intrigues is probable. But there was another and, as the event proved, more formidable candidate in Stanislas Poniatowski, who had spent four years in Russia as Polish envoy, and had there been one of the Empress Catherine's favourites-a partiality which stood him later in good stead. Thus the position of the Saxon party was insecure; a false step might destroy all chance of the Duke of Courland ever reaching that throne on which his father was seated. It is well to bear this in mind when judging the young man's subsequent conduct.

The Countess Françoise Krasinska, the second daughter of Count Korvin Krasinski, was born in 1742, at the castle of Maleszow, the ruins of which are still standing. She begins her diary on January 1, 1759, impelled thereto by her father's having read aloud to his family extracts from a huge tome, in which he has written down all that has occurred of importance' as it happened throughout his life. Fortunately for us, the facts, sentiments, and reflections of his sixteen-year-old daughter are not always such as would have appeared of importance' to the respectable but pompous gentleman whose acquaintance we make in these pages. Her honoured Parents'-she never speaks of them otherwise-were both so deeply imbued with the grandeur of their family, which was not only of great antiquity but illustrious for valour, that they never ceased talking of their ancestry. It would have been regarded as a disgrace had the children not known the names and

exploits of every Krasinski and every Korvin in past history, the latter house being descended from the Roman family of Corvinus, who came from Hungary to Poland in the eleventh century. I can recite the genealogy of the Krasinskis, ' and the history of each of them, as perfectly as my morning 'prayer,' she writes, and I think that I should have more 'difficulty in telling the names of our Polish kings in chronological order than in telling those of my ancestors. The pictures of the most illustrious are in our hall’—and they may still be seen in Count Adam Krasinski's palace in Warsaw.

After regretting that her father has no son to inherit the family honours-only four daughters-Françoise, who is the second of the sisters, proceeds, quite naturally, to discuss her good looks, her manners, her proficiency in accomplishments:

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'The courtiers tell me often that I am the handsomest, but I am sure I do not see it; we all have the bearing becoming young ladies of high station, daughters of a Staroste; we are straight as poplars, with complexions white as snow, and cheeks pink as roses; our waists, especially when Madame ties us fast in our stays, can be, as they say, clasped with one hand." In the parlor, before guests, we know how to make our courtesy, low or dégagé, according to their importance; we have been taught to sit quiet on the very edge of a stool, with our eyes cast down and our hands folded, so that one might think we were not able to count three, or were too prim even to walk out of the room easily. But people would think differently if they saw us on a summer morning, when we are allowed to go to the woods in morning gowns, without stays, puffs, coiffures, or high-heeled shoes. Oh! how we climb the steep hill-sides, and run and shout and sing till our poor Madame is quite out of breath from running and calling after us.'

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The girl has scarcely ever left home, except twice a year to visit one of her aunts. But the honoured Parents are now thinking of sending her to finish her education at a convent in Warsaw, where her elder sister, Basia, has, of course, learnt more than any of us; her courtesies are the lowest, and her manners the most stately.' Françoise half dreads, half longs for the convent. I am perfectly happy ' at home; but there I shall improve in the French language, which is now indispensable for a lady, also in music and in dancing, and besides that, I shall see a great town, ' our capital.'

6

The Castle of Maleszow must have been a formidable home, one would think, little suggestive of youthful jollity, with its four bastions, surrounded by a moat full of water, 'crossed by a drawbridge, and situated amidst forests in a