To this catalogue of crime, for which the wretched prince has since been called upon to answer before a higher tribunal, we cannot forbear adding another specimen of his cruelty towards a Polish gentleman now in this country.

His career may be described as one of pain and misery. His fathera distinguished champion of the liberties of his country at the period of the last partition-was expatriated: being accompanied with his wife, the subject of the present detail was born during their flight, and was seized with his father's property by the government! He was placed with a man who appears to have possessed some of the feelings of humanity; for on the death of his own child, he reported the stranger to be dead, at the same time restoring him to his parents. Subsequently to the establishment of the Duchy of Warsaw, he entered the service of Napoleon, and served with distinction, but was taken prisoner in 1812, and was three years in prison. After the cession to Russia, and the establishment of the kingdom, he wished to retire from military life; and, after fourteen refusals to accept his resignation, the permission to retire was most ungraciously granted. His pertinacity had offended, and his integrity made him a marked man. Accordingly, on the occasion of which we speak, he was arrested, (having at that time previously spent about seven years in Russian prisons,) and without condemnation placed in a dark dungeon, where for eleven months he neither saw the face of man or the light of day. At the expiration of that time he, with others, was suddenly taken from their cells, thrown into common carts, and conveyed under a burning sun to St. Petersburg, where he was kept in rigorous custody, until he had completed his fourth year of additional captivity. Almost at the moment of his arrest he had been married to a lovely and amiable female: he had no intercourse with his family during his wearisome confinement; and when he returned to be cheered by domestic affection, he found that he had become a father, but that his wife, worn out by her feelings, was no longer the beautiful partner of his hopes and fears, but an exhausted being, drooping fast into her grave. She died in two months!'-pp. 411-413.

When we consider the natural character of the Poles, the high and fiery spirit by which they are animated, the recollections of ancient liberty and of national glory which they must dearly cherish, and of the personal influence which they formerly exercised in the affairs of their country, we cannot be surprised at the electric mass of indignation which these and a thousand other acts of the oppressor kindled in their breasts, and which at length broke upon him in sounds of thunder. The 30th of November, 1830, will be a day ever memorable in Polish annals. Secret associations had been already organized, for the purpose of taking advantage of any favourable circumstances that might arise for the liberation of their country. The French revolution of July gave new vigour to their hopes, and prepared them for any extremity. Constantine's police were aware of the excitation that prevailed, and in order to establish the guilt of those whom they most suspected, inveigled them into an association of their own; from indolence, or rather perhaps from fear of devising a new scheme of organization, they made use

of one that had been already adopted by patriotic associations, against the members of which the government had proceeded with its characteristic violence. The production of this scheme alarmed the younger conspirators, who were enthusiastic in the cause; and believing that they were about to be immolated on the spot, they rushed to the military school at which they were receiving their education, and with very little exertion persuaded all their comrades to arm and join them in an attack upon the palace. Amongst 180 individuals there was not a single dissentient; even one who was lying sick in bed joined his companions, and they forthwith commenced the revolution.

The Grand Duke, though affecting a reckless courage on all occasions, did not choose to incur the risk of living in the centre of Warsaw, but established himself at the palace of Belveder in the outskirts of the city, having at a short distance, the barracks of three regiments of Russian guards. From some whimsical motive he surrounded the barrack with a wide and deep ditch, over which some very narrow bridges were thrown, so that by boats it was most conveniently crossed. Constantine had no guards about his residence, but the disguised spies were so numerous, that no stranger could approach beyond the outer gate without interruption. The habits of the Grand Duke, too, favoured the plan of the conspirators. His usual practice was to rise at four, to appear among the troops and in public until his hour of dinner, which is two in the afternoon; then to retire to bed, sleep until seven or eight o'clock, then rise again and devote himself to amusement for the evening. The hour chosen for proceeding to his palace, for the purpose of making him a prisoner to be detained as an hostage, was seven. At that time the young soldiers proceeded to the bridge of Sobieski, where the main body posted themselves, while a dozen of the most determined pressed forward to complete their object. They forced their way into the palace, where they were first opposed by the director of the police, one Lubowidizki, who fled on being wounded: next they encountered the Russian General Gendre, a man infamous for his crimes; he was killed in the act of resisting. Lastly, when on the point of reaching the bedchamber of the Grand Duke, who alarmed had just risen, they were stopped by the valet-de-chambre Kochanowski, who by closing a secret door enabled his master to escape undressed through the window. He fled to his guards, who instantly turned out. Disappointed in their prey, the devoted band rejoined their companions at the bridge of Sobieski, where they had been awaiting the result of the plan. On finding that the first object had failed, they resolved on returning into the city. In doing this, it was necessary to pass close to the barracks, where the soldiers were already mounted, but unable to cross the ditch, from the precautionary arrangements of the small bridges. They could therefore only fire on the hostile party, who from being thus peculiarly situated, returned the fire so briskly that they killed three hundred before they retreated, carrying off only one of their party wounded. On reaching the city, they instantly liberated every state prisoner, were joined by the school of the engineers and the students of the university. A party entered the only two theatres open, calling out, "Women home-men to arms!" Both requisitions were instantaneously complied with. The arsenal was next forced, and, in

one hour and a half from the first movement, so electrical was the cry of liberty, that 40,000 men were in arms. The sappers and the fourth Polish regiment declared in favour of the insurrection very soon: and by eleven o'clock the remainder of the Polish troops in Warsaw, declaring that their children were too deeply compromised to be abandoned, espoused the popular cause. On hearing this, the Grand Duke fell back, forcing two regiments of Polish guards along with him!'- -pp. 414-416.

There is little doubt that if time had allowed the arrangements of the revolutionists to have been somewhat better matured, Constantine and his troops might have been easily captured. They were foolishly permitted to escape under a convention; but the patriots have since then given abundant proof to the world that this was an act of clemency, not of timidity. Nobly indeed have they vindicated the Polish name. Their recent deeds of arms have given new lustre to the cause of liberty throughout the civilized world; and we trust that the time is fast approaching when they shall receive, as well from the government as from the people of England, that active sympathy which they have so richly earned. We have been, since the very commencement of their operations, so intensely occupied with our own affairs, involving not merely a change of ministry, but the election of a new parliament, and the discussion of many essential alterations in its constitution, that we have hardly had time to pay even a moderate degree of attention to the operations of those chivalrous champions of Sarmatia. We fervently pray that they may be able to disperse the armies of the haughty Czar, drive them back to their native marshes, and for ever remove from his head the diadem which his tyranny has sullied. If the effusion of blood can indeed be prevented by mere diplomatic interference, we may envy the French nation the glory of originating it. But we cannot the less admire and thank that great country, in the name of humanity and freedom, for listening to the voice of instinct and feeling in such a cause, instead of waiting for events, and the ceremonious routine of that phlegmatic policy, which has too long hung

like an incubus over our own cabinet.

ART. VIII.-The Library of Entertaining Knowledge.--The Architecture of Birds. Parts I. and II. London: Knight. 1831. FOR this charming volume of Natural History we are indebted to Mr. Rennie, the Author of Insect Transformations and Insect Architecture. It has been thought by some of our contemporaries that the titles which he has chosen to give to his works, have been somewhat fanciful, and calculated chiefly for the purposes of attraction. They may be open to this objection to a certain extent, but we are inclined to think that it is of very little consequence what name an author gives to his book, provided that it be in itself capable of rewarding the attention which we bestow upon it. In a

production of this class, destined for the entertainment of a large class of readers, the absence of formality and system is, in our eyes, a great recommendation. We do not think that it signifies a great deal, whether there be or be not any decided and striking analogy between miners and mining-birds, masons and mason-birds, tailors and tailor-birds, weavers and weaver-birds. If there be the slightest possible ground for the justification of these appellations, a mere peg as it were to hang an association upon, that is sufficient. In an elaborate treatise, affecting to discuss the subject scientifically, we should undoubtedly look for an arrangement of topics according to rules that either have been, or deserve to be, stamped with a legitimate authority. But in such a publication as the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, we seek principally for amusement, and if with it we obtain a little instruction, we may feel assured that it will not be the less pleasing or impressive, because it has come in a kind of dishabille.

Nothing, in our estimation, can be done amiss which tends to increase our love of nature and of her wondrous works. To some readers, and perhaps to all deep thinkers, system, classification, and a technical nomenclature are indispensible; and they look upon any thing in the shape of a popular vehicle of knowledge as undeserving of their notice, and beneath even their contempt. But all such persons we leave to the enjoyment of their stilts. They cannot put a cloud upon the sun, nor stop the song of the lark, nor ruffle the music of the brook, nor lessen the pomp of the woods, nor spoil the garniture of the fields. If they choose to enter into the subject of Natural History with their spectacles on, and a box of Pontet at their elbow, we wish them joy of their preference. For our parts, we love to roam abroad beneath the garish eye of day, to read the glorious volume of nature in her own handwriting, for the understanding of which neither spectacles, Pontet, nor dictionaries are required-nothing but the light of heaven, the balmy breeze, and the harmony of a mind at peace with all the world, and especially with Him who made the world. Alexander Wilson, the Scotch weaver, who went to the United States without a friend, a wanderer in a strange country, never, perhaps, read a line of Buffon or Cuvier. Nevertheless, at the age of forty, he taught himself to draw and colour after the designs of nature, such as he found them amid the forests and mountains: he sought information concerning her works at her own hands; in seven years he travelled ten thousand miles, such was the good man's enthusiasm in pursuit of a knowledge of the native birds of that continent; and he has succeeded in producing an account of them, which has thrown almost all other books on the subject into the shade.

The object of the present volume is said to be an examination of birds in the exercise of their mechanical arts of constructing nests:' a subject replete with interest, inasmuch as the modes are infinite in which the birds perform that office, in order to adapt their nests

to the peculiar habits of the individual. Mr. Rennie does not, however, confine himself exclusively to this department of the business of the feathered race. He merely uses the title as an apology for collecting together, as well from his own observations, as from those of other naturalists, the most interesting facts which enter into the general history of birds, his real object being to produce a readable book, rather than a regular treatise, Thus, for instance, we have several pages concerning the habits of the Petrel, commonly called the stormy Petrel, or Mother Cary's chickens, but scarcely more than a line or two about their nests, and not a word about the construction of those habitations. But would this deviation from the proposed plan of the work prevent us from admiring with Wilson, as quoted by Mr. Rennie," these little birds in a gale, coursing over the waves, down the declivities, and up the ascents of the foaming surf that threatens to burst over their heads, sweeping along troughs of the sea as in a sheltered valley, and again mounting with the rising billow, and just above its surface, occasionally dropping their feet, which, striking the water, throw them up again with additional force, sometimes leaping, with both legs parallel, on the surface of the roughest waves for several yards at a time?" We suspect that the mere divergence of the matter from the proposed outline, will not diminish the reader's pleasure in perusing the glowing and picturesque description (abridged by Mr. Rennie) which the Scottish weaver gives of these birds, although it does not contain a syllable about their nests.

"There are," says the same writer in another place, "few persons who have crossed the Atlantic that have not observed these solitary wanderers of the deep, skimming along the surface of the wild and wasteful ocean; flitting past the vessel like swallows, or following in her wake, gleaning their scanty pittance of food from the rough and whirling surges. Habited in mourning, and making their appearance generally in greater numbers previous to or during a storm, they have long been fearfully regarded by the ignorant and superstitious, not only as the foreboding messengers of tempests and dangers to the hapless mariner, but as wicked agents, connected somehow or other in creating them. 'Nobody,' say they, can tell any thing of where they come from, or how they breed, though (as sailors sometimes say) it is supposed that they hatch their eggs under their wings as they sit on the water.' This mysterious uncertainty of their origin, and the circumstances above recited, have doubtless given rise to the opinion, so prevalent among this class of men, that they are in some way or other connected with the prince of the power of the air. In every country where they are known, their names have borne some affinity to this belief. They have been called witches, stormy petrels, the Devil's birds, and Mother Cary's chickens, probably from some ideal hag of that name; and their unexpected and numerous appearance has frequently thrown a momentary damp over the mind of the hardiest seaman. It is the business of the naturalist, and the glory of philosophy, to examine into the reality of these things; to dissipate the clouds of error and superstition wherever they darken and bewilder the human understanding, and to illustrate nature with the radiance of truth."