h, in a sprightly style and a peculiarly interesting way, gives a
good deal of information as to the literary and mental condition of
Poland, and the much-lauded revival of letters during the reign of
Stanislaus Poniatowski.

But perhaps the most interesting production of this period is Adam
Mickiewicz's course of Lectures on Slavic literature and the condition
of the Slavic nations, delivered in French at Paris, where he had
found employment as a professor in the College de France.[84] The deep
enthusiasm which pervades these lectures, the mental excitement by
which they would seem to have been dictated from beginning to end,
forbid us to consider them in the ordinary light of a mere course of
instruction on the subject to which they relate. But there is no other
work more full of ideas, or richer in thought; it is the reasoning of
a poet, and a poet's way of viewing the world. The one great
principle of these lectures again is _Panslavism_,--Panslavism
spiritualized and idealized; and therefore in a shape which can
inspire little fear to others in respect to their own nationality,
although it can never excite their sympathies. Mickiewicz still
idolizes Napoleon, and prophesies a revolution of the world; a new
revolution, a torch to illumine the world; he himself is "a spark,
fallen from that torch;" his mission is to prophesy to the world the
coming events "as a living witness of the new revelation," Although
these prophecies are not strictly political, we can see plainly, that
in the expectation of the prophet this new revolution will consist in
"the union of the _force_ of Slavic genius, with the _knowledge_ of
the West" (France); by which of course the intermediate Teutonic
principle must be crushed.

In purely poetical creations, this great poet shows his full power. In
a beautiful tale, _Pan Tadeusz_, "Sir Thaddeus," (Paris 1834,) which,
though in verse, may be considered as a novel, he very graphically
described the civil and domestic life existing in Lithuania
immediately before the war of 1812; and gave also further evidence of
his genius by several smaller poems. He is, however, not very
productive; a striking peculiarity of Slavic poets.

The principal poets of the modern romantic school in Poland, of which
Mickiewicz must be considered the founder, are the following:

A.E. Odyniec and Julian Korssak, both chiefly known by happy
translations from the English; but also not without creative power of
their