y of the insurrection in Volhynia, Paris. 1837. An
animated picture of the time, which appeared three years ago under the
title, "Representation of the national spirit in Poland." by
Ojczyczniak,[82] exhibits strong passions in the author; a glowing and
certainly not unnatural hatred against the great powers; but a still
more violent one against his _democratic_ countrymen, to whom he
imputes the perdition of the good cause. A history of the Polish
insurrection, published by S.B. Gnorowski in the English language.
Lond. 1839, is written in the same violent and prejudiced spirit.

The Slavic press in Paris has been especially productive in
periodicals; all of them replete with passion and hatred against their
oppressors; some of them conducted not without talent. The _Revue
Slave_, the _Mlada Polska_, (young Poland), the _Cronika, Emigracyi
Polskiej_ (Polish Emigrant's Chronicle), and the _Polish Vademecum_
edited by N.U. Hoffmann, may be named here. From the latter we learn,
that, from 1831 to 1837 among the Polish emigrants in France, _nine_
died in duels and _fourteen_ by suicide.

Joachim Lelewel, whose _literary_ activity belongs rather to the
preceding period, while that now under consideration was partly the
result of his _political_ career, lives still at Brussels, where he
has recently published (1849) a work on the civil rights of the Polish
peasantry. He attempts to demonstrate, that the oppression and the
debased condition of this class came upon them along with the
introduction of Christianity; and represents the Romish clergy, whose
advantage it was to keep up this state of things, as the principal
enemies of the peasantry. Lelewel's writings have wielded a more
decided influence in Poland than those of any other modern author. The
tendency of all his historical investigations, even when apparently
without any such design, has been since the very beginning of the
Russian dominion to undermine their power; and the great ability with
which he contrived to veil hints, to disguise remarks, and to follow
out under a harmless mask a certain and fixed purpose, had earned him
twenty or thirty years ago the name of the "Jesuit of history."

It remains now to give a general survey of the progress of Polish
_belles-lettres_ during the last twenty years; and also of those mixed
publications which excite a general interest. Here we must not omit to
mention Witwicki's the "Evening Hours of a Pilgrim," [83] a book
whic