own. Anton Malczeski is the author of a poetical tale,
_Maria_,[85] perhaps the most popular production of the Polish
literature. It is a touching family legend, traditional in the noble
house of Potocki in Volhynia; but transposed by Malczeski to the
Ukraine, and connected in that way with graphic descriptions of this
latter country. Malczeski lived a life of wild adventures; and died
young, not yet 34 years old, in 1826.

The Ukraine appears to be, on the whole, one of the favourite theatres
for the romantic school of Polish poets. Zaleski, Gosczynski,
Grabowski, all of them poets of more than ordinary talents, give us
pictures of this country, alternately sweet and rough, wild and
romantic. There must necessarily be some mixture of attractive and
repulsive elements here even for native poets; for the common people
are Russians, and hate the Polish nobility as their oppressors.
Nevertheless Thomas Padura, another of the young Polish school, chose
even the dialect of the Ruthenian peasantry for his songs. Another
Polish poet, who has selected the Ukraine for the theatre of most of
his tales, is Michael Czaykowski; he too is considered as standing at
the head of the novel writers of his country. His legends of the
Kozaks[86], his tales, _Wernyhora_[87], _Kirdzali_, the Hetman of the
Ukraine[88], etc. manifest a more than common talent.

To the poetical literature of the Polish emigrants belong further the
works of A. Gorecki, Garczinski, J. Slawacki, but, above all, of count
Ignatius Krasinski; not the same individual who wrote a history of the
Reformation in Poland in the English language[89]. He is by many of
his countrymen considered as their greatest living poet. Most of his
productions are enveloped in a certain mystical atmosphere, which
renders a commentary necessary in order to understand them. Two
dramatic poems, one called, in contrast to Dante, "The Undivine
Comedy;" the other, "Irydion," an illustration of Schiller's stern
apothegm, that "the history of the world is the judgment of the
world;" [90] are regarded as his most powerful productions[91].

Meanwhile this department of literature, in Poland itself, has taken,
in some of its branches, the same strictly national direction which
characterizes the Russian and Bohemian tendencies of modern times.
Many of the publications, which are reckoned under belles-lettres, are
nothing better than drawing-room productions, so called, meant to
satisfy the immedia