f schools rose from 140 to 634;
a commission was instituted for procuring the publication of
appropriate books of instruction in the Polish language; and several
similar measures were taken for advancing the best interests of the
country. The constitution of the new kingdom of Poland, in 1815,
entered essentially into the same views; and was in every respect
favourable to the development of the mental faculties of the nation.
The modern kingdom of Poland embraced, indeed, not much more than the
sixth part of the vast territory, which under the Jagellons had
constituted the kingdom of that name. Before the cessions at Andrussov
in the year 1667, the ancient kingdom contained sixteen millions of
inhabitants; the census of the modern kingdom in 1818, counted only
2,734,000. But that the population of this exhausted country increased
during the Russian administration,--especially in consequence of the
encouragement given to foreign colonists, the establishment of
manufactures which furnished means of support for the lower classes,
and other similar measures,--is apparent from the results of the
census of 1827; according to which the kingdom then contained
3,705,000 inhabitants.[41]

In the field of science and literature, the nobility had at length
found rivals among the free citizens; and the courts of these temples
were now, through the erection of village schools, made accessible
even to the peasant, who was, in name at least, no longer a degraded
slave.[42] If the Russian government in Poland had been exercised in
practice, according to the same principles on which it was founded; if
Alexander's first intentions had been practically executed in the same
spirit in which the happiness of his Polish subjects had been
theoretically planned; perhaps it would have been less difficult to
reconcile the minds of the Poles to the loss of their independence as
a nation, which they justly consider as an inestimable good. We have
here no concern with politics, except so far as they have a necessary
influence on the state of general cultivation; or so far as they give
birth to important occasional appearances in the republic of letters.
Considered in the first point of view, it is not to be denied, that
the Polish nation, since the foundation of the _constitutional_
Russian kingdom of Poland in 1815, has made more progress towards
social improvement, and has advanced more towards a state of equality
in a mental and intellectual resp