vering Slavic antiquities,' Hamb.
1795. In more modern times count Raczynski has published the 'Journal
of his travels to Constantinople and the plain of Troy,' richly
embellished with illustrations, mentioned above.[67] A view of Great
Britain was given in 1828 by Ljach Szyrma, under the title _Anglia i
Szkocya_.

SIXTH PERIOD.

_From the Polish Revolution in 1830 to the present time_.

We have thus brought down the history of Polish literature to the year
1830; an epoch of glorious, although most melancholy moment in the
history of Poland. If the literature of a country could ever be
regarded completely _in abstracto_; if it was not in intimate
connection with the political fate and position of its country; we
would have commenced this period with the first combats of the
Romantic and Classical schools, that is, about fifteen years
earlier.[68] But while these fifteen years may be considered in some
measure as the time of the fermentation of that spirit, which broke
out in 1830; this latter year--with its melancholy attempts on the
part of Russia to crush all Polish nationality, by the annihilation of
their higher seats of learning and the spoliation of all their
libraries, as the principal means of cultivating it--forms only too
distinctly an epoch, not only in Polish history in general, but
specially in Polish literature.

The state of the country on the whole in the beginning of 1830 was not
unprosperous. The cruel wrongs inflicted on the Poles since 1815 were
all in express violation of a constitution, which met with the
approbation of Kosciuszko and the best of the nation. A noble
individual, or a high-spirited people, can more easily submit even
to unjust laws, than to arbitrary despotism. _Legally_ the Grand Duke
had no right to keep a single Russian soldier in Poland; by the terms
of the constitution they could be there only as foreign guests.
_Legally_ the press was free. _Legally_ Poland could have defended
herself by her charter against any arbitrary act of her sovereign or
his viceroy. It would seem, however, that even the repeated
infringements of the constitution, and the direct violation of the
laws by the government, did not contribute so much to induce the Poles
to insurrection, as the fierce and brutal behaviour of the Russian
generalissimo, and of the Russian civil and military officers high and
low, whose profligacy had long made them the objects of deep contempt.
The annals of Warsaw i