, and a fifth at St.
Petersburg. There are other periodicals for scientific objects
published at Warsaw; while in the other cities the German publications
of that character are chiefly read. The periodical published by the
national institution, called after count Ossolinski, at Lemberg, is
however considered as the most important in the Polish language.

The high spirit of the Polish nation, and that glowing patriotism for
which they are so distinguished, has induced them during the period of
their unnatural partition and amalgamation with foreign nations, to
devote more zeal than ever to the sole national tie which still binds
together the subjects of so many different powers--their language.
There have been numerous learned societies founded; among them, above
all, the society of the friends of science at Warsaw, to which the
most eminent men of the nation belong, must be distinguished.
Academies of arts and sciences have been established, and associations
formed for various scientific purposes. The influence of all these
institutions, more especially that of the above-mentioned society at
Warsaw, has been very favourably employed in limiting that of the
French and German languages, naturally induced by political
circumstances.

The French language indeed, independently of the political events of
modern times, had already acted powerfully on the Polish at the close
of the preceding period. In poetry, the affected bombastic school of
the Gongorists and Marinists had been supplanted throughout all Europe
by the better taste of the cold, stiff, and formal French poets, whose
defects it was much easier to imitate than their merits. For more than
half a century the French language reigned with an uncontrolled and
unlimited sovereignty over all the literary world. But its most
absolute dominion was in Poland. In the manners of the nobility of
this country, French gracefulness and ease were, in a peculiar and
interesting manner, blended with the daring heroism of the knight and
the luxuriousness of the Asiatic despot. French refinement and French
witticism covered the rudeness and revelry characteristic of the
middle ages. French teachers and governesses had inundated the whole
country, and a journey to France was among the requisite conditions of
an accomplished education. The Polish writers--all of them belonging
to the nobility--to whom, from their youth, the French language was
equally familiar with their own, unconsci