England, of whom we knew nothing; and therefore
we considered Malcolm a greater man than
Jones, and we were glad to help him in the
family fight which you appear to have got up at
that time for our entertainment. In a word,
Sahib Smith, it is no use wasting any more talk;
whenever you really want us, you must buy us,
and there is an end of it."

This is, fairly and truly, the Persian view of the
case between England and Persia.

POLAND.

ENGLISH readers, who con the telegrams from
Poland in the morning papers with an interest
which is somewhat dashed by the perpetual
intrusion of names unpronounceable by Western
lips, are apt to regard that distant land watered
by the Vistula from a point of view partly
compassionate, partly romantic and sentimental.
They think of Thaddeus of Warsaw, as delineated
by Miss Jane Porter; they recal some of the
operas and ballets of former days; they have
visions of the polka, the varsoviana, and the
cracovienne—of exiled counts, great in ladies' drawing-
rooms, of wild-eyed, long-haired instrumentalists
and vocalists (musical and melancholy), of
much life-long misery heroically borne, and of
some few impostors. They sigh, they moralise,
and they pass on; but it never occurs to them
that this " Niobe of nations" was at one time a
great power, strong enough to be a terror to the
nations which now oppress it, and to stand as
a bulwark between the rest of Europe and the
vast wave of Ottoman conquest.

The Poles have sometimes been described as
the Irish of the Continent; and there is a good
deal of truth in the characterisation. They
have the same impulsive lyrical temperament;
the same impressionable nature; the same love
of military adventure; the same devotion to the
Roman Catholic faith, resisting all the assaults
of Protestantism; and, it is to be feared, the
same incapacity for the prosaic work of
practical self-government. Yet they must have
possessed a greater inherent vitality than our
Milesian fellow-subjects; for Poland remained
a distinct kingdom till near the close of last
century, while the separate nationality of
Ireland has ceased to exist for seven hundred years.
The maintenance of her independence by Poland
is the more remarkable when we consider that,
with powerful neighbours, she had but weak
frontiers, excepting where the Carpathian mountains
divided her from Hungary. The country
is for the most part a vast plain—not the best
sort of ground to defend against an enemy,
though greatly assisted in this respect by the
prevalence of large forests and marshes. The
word "Pole" in the native tongue signifies a
plain; but we are not to suppose that the whole
land is an unbroken champaign. Still, flatness
is the general characteristic; and the rivers are
sluggish, and disposed to overflow their bounds.
With these disadvantages—with a climate not
very inviting, and a soil not very fertile—it may
appear surprising that Poland should ever have
made a figure in the world. But it received the
rudiments of civilisation at an earlier period
than some of its neighbours, and the military
virtues of its people maintained its independence
until a comparatively recent epoch.

In the ancient world, Poland was unknown
as a separate nation. It formed part of that
vast tract stretching from Europe far into the
Northern Asiatic plains, and known as
Sarmatia, the races inhabiting which were reckoned
barbarians by the Greeks and Romans (no doubt
very justly), and were held in bad moral repute
by their more cultivated neighbours; though
what right the latter had to upbraid them on
that ground it would be hard to say. The then
desolate region, however, had its revenge on the
Romans in the days of their decline; for from
the various districts of Sarmatia issued forth
several of those fierce and warlike tribes which
repeatedly sacked the city of the Cæsars, and,
rough, savage, and unlettered as they were
themselves, formed the connecting link between
ancient and modern civilisation. Poland seems
to have arisen as a distinct state about the
middle of the sixth century; but it was then
only a dukedom, and was peopled with wild
pagans, who have left few records of themselves
in history. The Poles were not converted to
Christianity until a rather late period, though
earlier than some of the surrounding populations.
In the savage recesses of their forests
and bogs, they maintained the idolatrous
worship of older times until the year 965—only a
century before the Norman conquest of
England. The founder of the first dynasty was a
peasant named Piast, of whom we have no exact
account. The dukedom became a kingdom in
the year 1000, by favour of the German
Emperor, Otho the Third, who recognised its
independence of the Empire; and from that time
Poland became a power in Europe, and a country
to be feared as well as respected.

The most prominent characters in the early
history of the land are the five monarchs
bearing the name of Boleslaus, or Boleslav.
It was in the reign of the first of these
(extending over the first quarter of the eleventh
century) that the dukedom was raised to the higher
rank of a kingdom; and the ruler thus dignified
sought every opportunity of asserting his power
in the most tangible way. He reduced the
whole of Bohemia and Moravia, and, seizing the
reigning duke, put out his eyes, following up
that atrocity by condemning his son to
perpetual imprisonment. Then he carried his
victorious arms into Russia, where he restored
a certain prince who had been compelled to fly
the country. This prince had the ingratitude
afterwards to conspire against Boleslaus, who
was pursued by the very brother with whom
the restored ruler had been engaged in civil war;
but the Pole worsted him, after a sanguinary
encounter, and, leaving the Muscovite territory,
of which he certainly had no reason to think
kindly, poured his legions into Pomerania,
Prussia, and Saxony, which he subjugated even