while more than two hundred country girls were found in their number. The cup of joy was now full to the brim. All distinction of rank, age, even sex vanished. The noble and the peasant, the rich and the poor, joined hy the common tie of sufferings, embraced as brothers. Tables with refreshments were spread in the streets for those who arrived; and in the evening, the theatre was opened for the first time in this eventful period. A patriotic drama was performed which electrified the audience; the music playing Kosciuszko's march, that had not been. heard for fifteen years, was drowned in the shouts of the people. "Hail our country, our father Kosciuszko and his friend La Fayette for ever!" filled the air. On the conclusion of the drama, those of the patriots who distinguished themselves on the first night and after, in this revolution, and those who suffered in dungeons for their country, were presented to the audience. The people received them with joy, and carried them about on their shoulders. Then several ladies were brought forward, who on the first night had followed the patriots in arms, or had sacrificed their wealth on the altar of freedom. These heaven-sent angels appearing in the halo of their virtue, were received by the people with the greatest enthusiasm, who intoxicated with joy and their newly recovered liberty, returned with shouts and songs to their homes.

On the 5th religious solemnities, in honor of the martyrs of Praga, took place under the canopy of heaven at Praga. On the spot where their remains were buried an altar was erected, and mass was said. More than 50,000 men, that were assembled around the altar, sent up, with one voice, their prayer to God. The twelve academical legions formed the innermost circle, amid which the late sufferers were the most prominent. In the intervals of, and after the divine service, several speeches were made; one of which was delivered by one of the liberated prisoners, who, after alluding to the cruelties of Suwarow, and stating his own sufferings, thus concluded:

"Brethren, we were lately forbidden, nay, it was accounted a crime, to pray for our murdered ancestors. To-day, under this free vault of heaven, on the grave of our fathers, on the soil moistened with their sacred blood, which cries to us for retribution, in the presence of their spirits hovering over us, we swear never to lay down

our arms till we shall have been avenged, or fallen like them.”

At the conclusion of the ceremony the air resounded with the patriotic hymns which the assembled multitude rolled heavenward in their joy.

On the 6th of December, the silverheaded general, Chlopicki (Klopitskie), whom Europe knew as a warrior, and his country as a patriot, was chosen dictator. Thus, the supreme civil and military power being committed to his hands, the authority of the provisional government was at an end. The Dictator promised to lay down his authority on the assemblage of the Diet, and he took an oath to act in conformity to the spirit of the nation.

On entering upon his duties, the Dictator was found unequal to his task. He amused himself with diplomatic negocia tions, and neglected the rapid preparations for war that were demanded by the people. In the mean time the Emperor roared like a lion when provoked in his den, threatening utter annihilation if the people did not submit unconditionally. What was wanting to the Dictator in activity, the people tried to make up by their own energy, and the warlike preparations went on briskly. On the assemblage of the Diet, the Dictator's conduct was inquired into; the consequence of which was, that he was deprived of his authority. The civil administration was entrusted to Prince Adam Czartoryski, and the command of the army to Prince Michael Radziwil, both subordinate to the Diet.

After he proved his inability to be at the helm of the government, General Chlopicki took a place in the suite of the Commander-in-chief, and was admitted into the councils of military affairs. The dictatorship was unhappy in its consequences, for the time lost in delay could not be retrieved, even by victories. The enemy was allowed to cross the frontiers, while they might have been easily kept at a distance.

When the Russian army was in motion against the Poles, Diebitsch, the Commander-in-chief published a proclamation, couched in insulting terms, and threatening to crush the Polish nation with one blow. Indignant at these menaces, the people instantly demanded to be led against the enemy. The contest was to be unequal. Prussia and Austria assumed a menacing attitude, and

the numerous Russian army was already advancing. Yet courage and faith in the good cause, joyously bore the handful of the Poles into the field of battle.

On the 25th of January the troops began to leave Warsaw and the other towns of the department, for the scene of action. When the march commenced, people from the neighboring country covered the plains around Warsaw, witnessing the departure. The troops passed in review before the general-in-chief, and left the city marching between lines of people, composed of senators, officers of the government, the clergy, women and children, and extending more than two miles beyond Praga. Each regiment took an oath to defend their country to the last drop of their blood. And sentiments like the following were constantly heard: "Dear General, if you see us turn from before the enemy, point the artillery against us, and annihilate our ranks." The people could not but trust in such soldiers.

The actual force of the Polish army at the commencement of the campaign amounted to 32,600 infantry, 13,200 cavalry, while its artillery consisted of 96 pieces. So small a handful of men dared to engage with the giant forces of Russia, consisting, according to their own statements, of 300,000 men and 300 cannon. This colossal army, with Marshal Diebitsch at their head, crossed, in the early part of February, 1831, the Polish frontier.

Thus, after being chained for fifteen years, the white Polish eagle breaks loose his fetters. Mindful of his past glory he soars high in the skies; he pants for a rencounter, and defies the black two-headed Russian bird of prey. Their first meeting is a determined struggle; the white plumage of the bird of Poland is reddened with the blood of his antagonist, which is glad to escape with life. They meet again; and again the black eagle of Russia seeks safety in flight. But to follow thee, O white eagle! in thy bold flight, to recount thy bloody battles and thy victories, would task the pen of a Livy.

The 10th of February, 1831, was the day that heard the first shots exchanged by the two opposing armies. Miendzyrzec was the place in which a little skirmish took place; and here the Polish army entered upon the career of victory. Several remarkable battles, and numerous

skirmishes had already occurred when the dawn of the 25th of February broke upon the victorious Poles. This was the day of the memorable battle of Grochow, fought within sight of the walls of Warsaw.

The force that the enemy disposed in order of battle consisted of 126,000 infantry, 42,000 cavalry and 280 cannon. The day of this great action was a day of unprecedented horror. The battle opened at day-break, and at once became furious. The earth bellowed and groaned as if in her last agonies; the air, pierced with thousands of voices of the dying and wounded, seemed as if invaded by vociferating spirits, the clouds of smoke turned day into night, through which broke the flashes of the cannon like lightning through the midnight tempest. The men, begrimed with smoke and bespattered with blood, looked as if just escaped from the infernal regions; all was wild, unearthly and terrific. But amid these scenes, senators, officers of the gov ernment, the clergy, nay, women of rank, were seen succoring the wounded and comforting the dying. And hard by, the anxious multitude covered the plain, watching eagerly the balancing of the fate of the battle; their pale, anxious faces now reflecting joy, now fear; their hearts now swelling at the sight of the retreating enemy, and now trembling for the fate of their fathers, husbands, sons and brothers. A little farther off rose the walls of Warsaw, black with the breathless population, fixedly gazing upon the scene below, filled with the agony of wavering hope, the convulsive succession of fear and joy, as the tide of battle flowed towards the city or receded in the distance. Nine times did the Russian thousands sweep over their position, and nine times did that band of freemen steadily hurl them back. At length, with the sunset, victory gave her blast for the Poles. All at once, the heavens resound with "POLAND FOREVER!" The people rush into the embraces of the exhausted but victorious soldiers. Here the mother finds her son, doubly dear to her for his gushing wounds; there, the wife her husband, more beloved for the marks of daring that cover him; and yonder, children come to kiss the wounds of their father. And here, at the sight of a dying brother or son, husband or father, nature struggles between the love of self and that of country; but the last prevails. Such was this eventful day,

to restrain evil, not to plant and nurture virtues in the people, but with a strong and impartial hand, to curb their outlawry and rebellion. With positive rights, government can, of course, have little to do. Her sphere of action is confined to indirect means, and her operations are subject to all those casual influences, in the creation of which every court is prolific. Thus it is, that those who view man only in a political light, have cut off from him all those direct and immediate powers, whose workings are able to mould anew the whole face of society. Government they have made the end, whilst it is only a means. They have mistaken the instrument by which human happiness may be promoted, for that happiness itself. In this wise, have men been led on to look only at the forms and symbols in which principles are clothed. They saw how potent were those meaningless insignia, with all others around them, and is it to be wondered at that even the wisest should forget the substance and cling only to the shadow, that they should scoff at the spirit, whilst they bowed to its corpse? Whole parties have been arrayed around empty and unmeaning symbols, by which principles were once made visible: indeed, the time was, -nay, it is somewhat with us nowwhen man did nothing save in the mass. Independent, individual action was checked by the crushing spirit of a despotic philosophy. Man's influence, as an absolute, self-acting, self-moving being, seemed almost forgotten. In the language of a French philosopher, "the pleasure of feeling one's self a man, the sentiment of personality, of human spontaneity, in its unrestricted development, was almost lost to our race." Clubism, 66 the sure symptom of unrest and disease," spread far and wide over society, and well might the philosopher say, "The deep meaning of the laws of mechanism hang heavy upon us." In the closet and in the fo rum, in the temple and by the fireside, it encumbered every working of the mind, and was spreading over the noblest of faculties a nightmare of sleep. Every error was made the subject of political action. No progress was seen, no reform was carried on, save by the mass. Its evils were as evident as they were inevitable. Excesses, roused up by stirring manias, rocked society to its centre, and men trembled under a despotism as infuriate as it was senseless. The operations of law and government are, we would

again remark, confined to outward results, regarding only visible and tangible effects. By operations of law and government, we mean all united action upon masses. The Muthoi of Plato, the categories and dicta of Aristotle, did much indeed to draw man from truth. Many were their errors, and deeply, grievously, did their wild and visionary theories weigh down upon the spirit of true and noble philosophy. But the enemies of their school ran into an extreme far more debasing. With the one all was silent, unfruitful thought; with the other all was senseless, mechanical force. If the ancient student too slightly regarded the physical and practical powers of his fellow-men, have not the moderns been equally disrespectful of their mental and spiritual stores?

Utility alone has been revered. It has been the key-stone of a philosophy which even yet holds iron sway over men. Bentham, Hobbes and Mills have not yet lost their disciples or defenders. In this, our boasted Nineteenth Century, we are but little beyond the ancient Greek, pagan and imperfect as he was, as to ethical sciences. The phantasms of the subtil dreamer of the Academy might still teach us new truth. The philosophies of our day speak in no such wisdom as did that Socrates whom Plato has pictured to us, sitting at mid-noon under the shade of his favorite plane-tree, on the banks of the Ilissus. Even Rome, stern, selfish and iron-cast as she was, sunk men but little lower than did this torpifying spirit of the mass, which so sadly marked the advent of the last century. Its highest aim seemed to be, Midas-like, to turn the noblest things into perishable gold.

So

The operations of Law and Government are, we thirdly remark, uncertain. To this cause do we attribute much of that wayward inconsistency stamped on the actions of eminent Statesmen. shifting and changeful are the laws which guide men in their capacity of political societies, so tempting are the allurements of place and power, and so distant is just and righteous retribution for wrong, that man seldom leaves such pursuits save with a heart that has been visited with a scathing and wasting power. Look at Bolingbroke of England and Burr of America, and learn the mournful lesson from them. In the prime of manhood their intellects were lights to admiring Senates: in the close of their careers they were slow but self-consuming fires. Not

A GENIUS is expected by many, perhaps most of the world, to look and act very differently from the rest of mankind. Indeed, unless a man of great talent be remarkably large or small, or have such a physiognomy as was never before seen or heard of, or behave in such a manner as would make his company intolerable, unless he were that much talked of but rarely recognized thing-a genius-his hope of appreciation by the mass, in his own day and generation, would be, in most cases, vain. The eccentricities of genius, as they are called, are so looked upon as a necessary attendant, if not an essential part of it, as to be considered an unfailing index of its existence. So, but with more reason, miners tell the presence of rich iron beds by the discoloration and fetid odor of the water springing from the soil.

That some men of genius have been peculiar in person and eccentric in manner, there is no doubt; but there is as little doubt that their peculiarities and eccentricities have been greatly exaggerated by their Boswells, and again as little, that of men of genius, there have been comparatively few, very few, distinguished for eccentricity or personal peculiarity. Personal beauty of a high order is the only external characteristic which appears to belong to them as a class. The general belief on the subject seems naturally accounted for by the fact, that the peculiar habits of men of mark are as apt "monstrari digito" as their persons, and that which would be unheeded or frowned down in others, is sought out and tolerated, if not admired, in them. Most men paint for themselves an ideal head of the great creative minds with whose works they are familiar, and, doing so in conformity with the notions of which we have just spoken, most are disappointed on meeting with the portraits of those whom they have thus depicted to themselves.

There has probably never lived a more marked exception to these observationsone who, in his mode, life and personal appearance, more completely satisfied the general requirements as to men of genius-than Ludwig von Beethoven, the deaf composer of Bonn. Short in stature;

wild and melancholy in appearance; strange and careless in dress; painfully awkward in his movements; eccentric in all his habits of life; at times childishly simple, at others absurdly assuming in manner; distrustful of kindness, but intolerant of neglect; himself revering nothing, yet claiming all deference to himself; believing the enemies whom he despised, when they maligned the friends whom he respected; living in want and pleading penury when possessed of the means of comfort; affecting and seeming at times to despise rank and wealth, and yet eagerly seeking the notice of the one, and possession of the other; it seems only necessary that he should be a musician, and deaf, to fill up the measure of strangeness and inconsistency in his character. No one, who has understood and properly felt his music, can be for a moment dissatisfied with his por trait. The massy forehead and ponderous brow, the flood of wild, disheveled hair, the gloomy eye, gazing intensely into vacancy, and the strongly marked. mouth, where determination and scorn, wit and melancholy, seem striving for the mastery, are fair exponents of the man and his works.

Schindler, his incompetent biographer, says of him, that he possessed too much genuine religious feeling to believe that Nature had created him to be a model for future ages, as many would have persuaded him; speaks of him as living in another world, though existing in this; compares him to a child, to whom every external influence gives a new impulse, and who turns a willing ear to flattery, because incapable of estimating the motive of the flatterer. "Beethoven," says he, "well knew and always respected the motto, Palmam qui meruit ferat. His upright, impartial mind led him to bestow the most unequivocal approbation on foreign talent. He always bore in mind that a Mozart had preceded him, and that another might follow him. He ever cherished high expectations of the future, for he fervently believed in the omnipotence of the Creator, and the inexhaustibility of Nature." And then breaking out into the superlative of eulogy, he says: "Oh! how great was Beethoven as a man!

Whoever learned to know him on that side, and was capable of comprehending and judging, not only of his mighty genius, but also of his noble heart, will not fail to place the moral man, if not above the great composer, at least on the same level with him."

A very strange appreciation of Beethoven's character this, even taking the very partial and prejudiced biography which Schindler himself has produced, as giving the true points of that character. Dazzled by the halo of glory with which he justly circles the head of the composer, his biographer is blind to the distorted features of the man, drawn by his own unconscious and unwilling hand.

In considering the compositions of any mighty master, if we meet that which is dissonant to our ears and incomprehensible to our minds, we may bow in submission to the greatness of his genius, believing the fault in ourselves, and feeling that which is chaotic confusion to us, is clear and regular to him. For not all, even of the cultivated, have that natural organization which necessitates the susceptibility requisite to the perfect appreciation of the most elevated creations of art. And if it be true that, "in art the great is not for all," still more is it true that "all are not for the great." For, though in the loftiest creations of the greatest minds, there is a simplicity which makes them felt, even if not comprehended, by the lowliest minds; and though this very simplicity is one strong proof of their greatness, still there are some of their productions which are only for the cultivated and refined-some oracles uttered in a tongue known only to the initiated, because only to the initiated are they addressed; and it may be, some uttered only for their fellow-prophets, and comprehensible only by them." This is eminently the case with the works of Beethoven. He is not always lucid, and though we should recollect that he is great, not by reason of, but rather in spite of, his occasional want of clearness, yet there is no composer, save perhaps Handel, who requires to be read and heard with such implicit faith, and such distrust of self. But though the works of a great author may be regarded in this all trustful light, his life cannot claim the same immunity; still less should his vices or his failings be considered as necessary adjuncts to his genius. The possession of genius adds to, not diminishes, the accountability of its possessor to God

and man, and the biographer who gilds the vices of his subject by the glory of his works, is guilty as false himself to the trust he has received, and as an encourager of those who follow him to make their talent an excuse to themselves for the sins whose guilt it really deepens.

From these remarks it must by no means be gathered that Beethoven was a man of vicious life. Far from it. Indeed, had he been guilty of great crimes, urged on thereto by strong passions; had he been the wayward thing which genius sometimes is, his failings could have been passed by in that charity which beareth all things, believeth all things, and hopeth all things. But this was not the case. It is from the tone of his whole life and character, that we enter our objection to the eulogy of his biographer.

No; Beethoven was a mighty genius, but not a noble heart; he was a great composer, but not a great man; for his mind lacked integrity, and his heart charity. Self was the inspiration of the one, and the idol of the other. Shut out during the whole of his life from that rude contact with the world, which destroys the freshness, the purity, and the confidence of youth, but which it is one of the highest attributes of genius to preserve through life in unfading integrity, he seems to have been always distrustful of those around him, always selfish, always egotistical, and never to have had the least consideration for the feelings of others.

Beethoven was born at Bonn, in the year 1770, and passed his life in that city and in Vienna, where he composed all his great works, and where he died. His musical education he received from Haydn, Mozart, Albrechtsberger and Salieri. That is, he was the pupil of each one of these for some time, for he was too selfwilled to learn anything of anybody, and this trait of his character was evident, not only in music, but in all the affairs of life. He yielded nothing, either upon persuasion, reason or compulsion. His whole life as an artist and a man seems to have been the assertion of his own individuality, the enforcement of his own will and caprice. Wegeler, who knew Haydn, Albrechtsberger and Mozart, remarks that "each said Beethoven had always been so obstinate and self-willed, that his own hard experience often had to teach him those things, the study of which he would not hear of;" and Beethoven himself said—when Haydn, proud