hands could still find upon the key-board, though the dim and
aged eye could no longer see the keys. Some contemporary Polonaises are
of a character so sad, that they might almost be supposed to accompany a
funeral train.

The Polonaises of Count Oginski [Footnote: Among the Polonaises of Count
Oginski, the one in F Major has especially retained its celebrity. It
was published with a vignette, representing the author in the act
of blowing his brains out with a pistol. This was merely a romantic
commentary, which was for a long time mistaken for a fact.] which next
appeared, soon attained great popularity through the introduction of an
air of seductive languor into the melancholy strains. Full of gloom
as they still are, they soothe by their delicious tenderness, by their
naive and mournful grace. The martial rhythm grows more feeble; the
march of the stately train, no longer rustling in its pride of state, is
hushed in reverential silence, in solemn thought, as if its course wound
on through graves, whose sad swells extinguish smiles and humiliate
pride. Love alone survives, as the mourners wander among the mounds
of earth so freshly heaped that the grass has not yet grown upon them,
repeating the sad refrain which the Bard of Erin caught from the wild
breezes of the sea:

"Love born of sorrow, like sorrow is true!"

In the well known pages of Oginski may be found the sighing of analogous
thoughts: the very breath of love is sad, and only revealed through the
melancholy lustre of eyes bathed in tears.

At a somewhat later stage, the graves and grassy mounds were all passed,
they are seen only in the distance of the shadowy background. The living
cannot always weep; life and animation again appear, mournful thoughts
changed into soothing memories, return on the ear, sweet as distant
echoes. The saddened train of the living no longer hush their breath as
they glide on with noiseless precaution, as if not to disturb the sleep
of those who have just departed, over whose graves the turf is not yet
green; the imagination no longer evokes only the gloomy shadows of
the past. In the Polonaises of Lipinski we hear the music of the
pleasure-loving heart once more beating joyously, giddily, happily, as
it had done before the days of disaster and defeat. The melodies breathe
more and more the perfume of happy youth; love, young love, sighs
around. Expanding into expressive songs of vague and dreamy character,
they speak but to