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cf Fontainbleau. The commune he inhabited was devastated ky plundering mercenaries: he threw himself among them, protected the citizens, and indignantly addressed the officers of a Polish regiment, he met, and whose soldiers were not the least eager in the pillage: 'When I commanded brave soldiers,' exclaimed he, they did not plunder; and I would have severely punished the subalterns who would have dared to commit the actions I now witness, and still more severely the officers who should authorize them by their blamable indifference.''And who are you, that speak with so much boldness?' was the question on every side. —'I am Kosciusko!'-At this name, the soldiers threw down their arms, supplicated him to pardon the fault they had just been guilty of, prostrated themselves at his feet, and, according to the custom of their nation, covered their heads with dust.

sko, unable to support the dismal spectacle which the he loved next to his own presented at this epoch, quitted France, and, after travelling for some time in Italy, at last retired to Soleure, in Switzerland. It is thence that we must date the last remarkable act of his life. In 1817, in the presence of the magistrates, and by an act registered by public notary, he abolished slavery on his estate in Poland, declaring free, and exempt from all charges and personal services, the ancient serfs of his lands.

A deplorable accident, a short time after, put an end to his glorious career. His horse fell under him; and a grievous wound, the consequence of this fall, occasioned his death, a few days after.

The Old and the New world were afflicted by the news. His body was, at first, deposited in the church of Soleure ; but his grateful country soon claimed the remains of her greatest son. The Polish ladies, with unanimous accord, put on deep mourning, and wore it as for a father. His ashes now repose in the metropolitan church of Cracow, between those of Sobiesky and Poniatowski. But his memory will last longer than monuments elevated by the hands of men; and his glory without a stain, which even misfortune could not sully, will be perpetuated from age to age. The name of Kosciusko will be pronounced with veneration, as long as there exist beings who know virtue and cherish liberty,

EXERCISE LXXII.

THE BATTLE OF GROKOW.- Stephens..

The following account depicts a scene, the contemplation of which excites mingled emotions of horror, pity, and admiration. The ferocity of war has seldom been displayed in truer coloring, or the spectacle of manly resistance to oppression wrought to a higher pitch of effect. The author is giving his impressions on visiting the scene of conflict.

The battle of Grokow,- and the last successful struggle of the Polish nation against the tyranny of Russia, - the greatest in Europe, since that of Waterloo, was fought on the twenty-fifth of February, 1831; and the place where I stood commanded a view of the whole ground. The Russian army was under the command of Diebitsch,* and consisted of one hundred and forty-two thousand infantry, forty thousand cavalry, and three hundred and twelve pieces of cannon.

'This enormous force was arranged in two lines of combatants, and a third of reserve. Its left wing, between Warsaw and the marshes of the Vistula, consisted of four divisions of infantry, of forty-seven thousand men; three of cavalry, of ten thousand five hundred; and one hundred and eight pieces of cannon: the right consisted of three and a half divisions of infantry, of thirty-one thousand men; four divisions of cavalry, of fifteen thousand seven hundred and fifty men; and fiftytwo pieces of cannon. Upon the borders of the great forest, opposite the Forest of Elders, conspicuous from where I stood, was placed the reserve, commanded by the Grand Duke Constantine. Against this immense army, the Poles opposed less than fifty thousand men, and a hundred pieces of cannon, under the command of Skrizynecki. †

'At break of day, the whole force of the Russian right wing, with a terrible fire of fifty pieces of artillery, and columns of infantry, charged the Polish left, with the determination of carrying it by a single and overpowering effort. The Poles,

with six thousand five hundred men, and twelve pieces of artillery, not yielding a foot of ground, and knowing they could hope for no succor, resisted this attack for several hours, until the Russians slackened their fire.

* Pronounced, Deebeetsch.

↑ Skreetseenetskee.

'About ten o'clock, the plain was suddenly overspread with the Russian forces, issuing from the covert of the forest, and seeming one individual mass of troops. Two hundred pieces of cannon, posted on a single line, commenced a fire which made the earth tremble, and was more terrible than the oldest officers, many of whom had fought at Marengo and Austerlitz, had ever beheld. The Russians now made an attack upon the right wing, but failed in this, as upon the left.

'Diebitsch then directed the strength of his army against the Forest of Elders, hoping to divide the Poles into two parts. One hundred and twenty pieces of cannon were brought to bear on this one point; and fifty battalions, incessantly pushed to the attack, kept up a scene of massacre unheard of in the annals of war.

A Polish officer, who was in the battle, said that the small streams which intersected the forest were so choked with dead, that the infantry marched directly over their bodies. The heroic Poles, with twelve battalions, defended the forest for four hours, against the tremendous attack. Nine times they were driven out; and nine times, by a series of admirably executed manœuvres, they repulsed the Russians with immense loss. Batteries now concentrated in one point, were in a moment hurried to another; and the artillery advanced to the charge, like cavalry, sometimes within a hundred feet of the enemy's columns, and there opened a murderous fire of grape-shot.

--

'At three o'clock, the generals, many of whom were wounded, or had had their horses shot under them, and fought on foot at the head of their divisions, - resolved upon a retrograde movement, so as to draw the Russians on the open plain. A cloud of Russian cavalry, with several regiments of heavy cuirassiers at their head, then issued to the attack.

'Colonel Pientka,* who, coolly seated on a dismounted picce of cannon, had kept up an unremitting fire from his battery, for five hours, remained to give another effective fire, then left, at full gallop, a post which he had so long occupied under the terrible fire of the enemy's artillery. This rapid movement of his battery animated the Russian forces. The cavalry advanced on a trot, upon the line of a battery of rockets. A terrible discharge was poured into their ranks; and the horses, galled to madness by the flakes of fire, became wholly ungovernable, and broke away, spreading disorder in *Pronounced, Peentka.

every direction: the whole body swept helplessly along the fire of the Polish infantry, and in a few minutes was so completely annihilated, that, of a regiment of cuirassiers, who bore inscribed on their helmets, the "Invincibles," not a man escaped. The wreck of the routed cavalry, pursued by the lancers, carried along in its flight the columns of infantry. A general retreat commenced, and the cry of "Poland, forever!" reached the walls of Warsaw, to cheer the hearts of its anxious inhabitants.'

EXERCISE LXXIII.

THE SAME SUBJECT, CONCLUDED.

'So terrible was the fire of that day, that, in the Polish army, there was not a single general, or staff officer, who had not his horse killed or wounded under him; two thirds of the officers, and, perhaps, of the soldiers, had their clothes pierced with balls; and more than a tenth part of the army were wounded. Thirty thousand Russians, and ten thousand Poles, were left on the field of battle: rank upon rank, lay prostrate on the ground; and the Forest of Elders was so strewed with bodies that it received, from that day, the name of the "Forest of the Dead." The Czar heard with dismay, and all Europe with astonishment, that the crosser* of the Balkan had been foiled under the walls of Warsaw.

'All day, my companion said, the cannonading was terrible. Crowds of citizens, of both sexes and all ages, were assembled on the spot where we stood, earnestly watching the progress of the battle, sharing in all its vicissitudes, in the highest state of excitement, as the clearing up of the columns of smoke showed when the Russians or Poles had fled; and he described the entry of the remnant of the Polish army into Warsaw, as sublime and terrible. The hair and faces of the soldiers were begrimed with powder and blood; their armor

*Diebitsch, on whom the emperor of Russia had conferred the title of Count Sabalkanski, from his having pursued his victorious career against the Turks, beyond the Balkan range of mountains.

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shattered and broken; and all, even dying men, were singing patriotic songs; and when the fourth regiment, among whom was a brother of my companion, and who had particularly distinguished themselves in the battle, crossed the bridge, and filed slowly through the streets, their lances shivered against the cuirasses of the guards, - their helmets broken, - their faces black and spotted with blood; some erect, some tottering, and some barely able to sustain themselves in the saddle; above the din of the chorus of patriotic songs, rose the distracted cries of mothers, wives, daughters, and lovers, seeking, among this broken band, for forms dearer than life, many of whom were then sleeping on the battle-field.

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My companion told me that he was then a lad of seventeen, and had begged with tears to be allowed to accompany his brother; but his widowed mother extorted from him a promise that he would not attempt it. All day he had stood, with his mother, on the very spot where we did, hand in hers, which she grasped convulsively, as every peal of cannon seemed the knell of her son; and when the lancers passed, she sprang from the boy's side, as she recognized, in the drooping figure of an officer, with his spear broken in his hand, the form of her gallant son. He was then reeling in his saddle; his eye was glazed and vacant; and he died, that night, in the arms of his mother and brother

EXERCISE LXXIV.

TO A SICK CHILD.-Leigh Hunt.

Sleep breathes, at last, from out thee,
My little patient boy!
And balmy rest about thee

Smooths off the day's annoy.

I sit me down, and think

Of all thy winning ways;

Yet almost wish, with sudden shrink,
That I had less to praise.

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