Courteous in camps as Sydney, perfect knight, Terrific as a lion in the fight!

Unconquerable spirit! that would dare

Hope against hope, where heroes might despair.
Vain his heart-piercing eloquence, that tore
To pieces cant of diplomatic lore,

Insult to common sense, that with parade
Of sentiment mock'd rights it dared invade !
Brave as the Maccabees, as good their cause,
The brothers for their country fought and laws*.
Whence but from love of country they derived
Untiring courage that defeat survived
Or cruelties unutterable, these
Terror-producing engines despots please.

Repnine, with gross debaucheries o'erstain'd
O'er the mock king a subtle viceroy reign'd.
If fail'd intrigue, for violence prepared,
Seldom his sword the worthy Russian spared.
Whether as fox or blood-hound, he imbruted
His nature as imperial Catherine suited.
Creatures subservient to the art or spleen
Of power even Repnines in this age are seen,
To break, enforce the laws, whate'er may be
For seizing on their neighbours' goods the plea.

*The three Pulawskis.

Such pranks they play! these masters of the world, Till from their heights by death o'ermastering, hurl'd, Then for a day,—but charity let fall

The curtain, Heaven knows we are sinners all.

What now avails, Potemkin, thy o'ergrown
Wealth, or thy clime-subduing genius shown
In wonder-works of art ? barbaric taste
There revell'd in a boundlessness of waste!

Again the North urged o'er the land her brood
Of darkness, swelling like a winter flood;
They with the besom of destruction swept
Away defenceless age; brave patriots kept
For a worse doom were from their country torn
To sink beneath accumulated scorn;
Enforced by tyrants merciless and rude
To drain the cup abhorr'd of servitude;
Or perish in Siberian wilds: their crime?
That, which good men a virtue deem sublime!

Great Catherine, greater Frederick, if great
Be those who spoil an unoffending state,
Alighting like fell vultures on their prey,
Tore Poland as she struggling, bleeding lay.
England and France look'd on, as Poland fell,
Nor strove by words the spoilers to repel;

Had they but interposed, with strength renew'd Freedom had started up, her foes subdued,—

Girt with a moral power had driven back, Quailing beneath her frown, the ravenous pack.

Sarmatia fell with all her chivalry;

Had but from France the fiat gone, Be free-
Napoleon, then all-powerful to save
Poland, had shone as generous as brave;
And the resuscitated state had pour'd
Her legions forth at her Deliverer's word
To check the Autocrat's barbaric pride,
And roll back on himself war's bloody tide.

Ready as wills their Despot-Lord for ill,
Such were the Russians, such remain they still—
Faithless in treaties, furious in the field,

Most to be dreaded when they seem to yield,
With vices of the civilised and savage
Impregn'd, they circumvent the world and ravage.
While specious manifestoes have a tone

Of moderation that their acts disown,

With arts deceptive they confound the weak,
To snare the Sultan rouse then crush the Greek.

Russia, the very wrongs she deprecates,

So cunning is her policy, creates ;

N

Protectress of the Sultan, how protect?
As knaves an heir whom Guardians lax neglect;
Hers is Silistria, for a debt unpaid,

A debt for what, 'gainst Mehmet Russian aid!
O may not Russia win her way by fraud,
While Dragomans her moderation laud

Till o'er Stamboul her shout of triumph swells,
That peals re-echo from the Dardanelles :
"Death-knell to Britain's commerce, in that hour
Totters the fabric of her Indian power."

NOTES TO "POLAND."

P. 171, 1. 1.

Luxury, with her paralysing mace, &c.

"Mais si nous jetons les yeux sur cette assemblée, nous verrons avec étonnement que malgré trente années de mauvais choix, malgré cette longue et trompeuse tranquillité qui avait laissé dans toutes les grandes charges des hommes vieillis dans le luxe et dans toutes les commodités de la vie, la Pologne avait encore un sénat: tant la liberté, même dans ses abus, peut encore former de grandes âmes, tant elle soutient encore long-temps les hommes contre le manège des cours, contre tous les maux du luxe, et de la corruption des mœurs !

"Heureuse cette république si la crainte des armes étrangères avait pu, au milieu de ses divisions, y devenir, comme chez les anciens Romains, le noeud de la concorde intérieure."-Histoire de l'Anarchie de Pologne, par Rulhière, tome ii. p. 43.

P. 172, 1. 1.

"Be on my head the blood of Poland, mine

The blame," exclaim'd the frontless Catherine.

On the subject of the projected partition of Poland it appears that Frederick, in his correspondence with Catherine, urged, perhaps sincerely, his apprehension of general censure.

Catherine answered, “I take all the blame upon myself.”

"Catherine," as the Edinburgh Reviewer observes, "was the great criminal. She had for eight years oppressed, betrayed, and ravaged Poland-imposed a king on that country-prevented all reformation of the government--fomented divisions among the nobility-and, in one word, created and maintained that anarchy which she at length used