ration of the last king of Poland, which was so rich in
improvements; a general code of laws was also planned, and projects
were prepared by able statesmen and lawyers; but they were all
rejected by the diet of 1777. Under the Russian administration,
preparation was made from the very beginning for the introduction of a
new code; but the first project of a criminal code presented by the
council of state, was likewise rejected by the diet of 1820. A portion
of the civil code was accepted in A.D. 1825; but the complete code,
which was ready for publication in the year 1830, had not, so far as
we are informed, been introduced before the outbreak of the
revolution. The administration of justice in Poland is about as bad as
in Russia; being nothing but one great system of bribery and
corruption. Of the judges of the lower courts, two thirds are elected;
one third of these, and all the officers of the higher tribunals, are
appointed by the government. In former times the profession of a
lawyer, as well as that of a physician, was considered in Poland as
degrading and unworthy of a nobleman. These two professions were not
indeed prohibited by law, like that of traders,--for a nobleman who
retailed "by yards or by pints," legally lost his rank,--but custom
had made all those occupations which were the source of pecuniary
profit, equally the objects of contempt. There was even a time, "when
it was reckoned a matter of indifference for a nobleman _to understand
arithmetic_[66]." In modern times the ideas on this subject have of
course changed; the study of law is no longer despised, especially in
its necessary connection with the administration of justice.
Slotwinski in Cracow, Bantkie and Maciejowski in Warsaw, were esteemed
as teachers of law. We shall hereafter have occasion to mention the
valuable work of the latter on this subject. The Roman law, both civil
and criminal, was studied in the universities, as well as the law of
nature and nations; which latter, in the case of this unhappy country,
has been for more than seventy years so cruelly violated.

It is a singular fact, that although, down to the year 1818 when the
Russian government interfered to prevent it, foreign travel was one of
the favourite means of education among the Polish nobility, their
literature exhibits hardly any books of travels. A few were formerly
written in Latin or French; among the latter we mention John Potocki's
'Travels for the purpose of disco