to the banks of the Elbe. A long term of peace
ensued, during which the king employed his
leisure in framing a code of laws, and promoting
the prosperity of his extensive dominions. War,
however, at length burst out afresh in Russia.
Boleslaus, quitting the ease of his court,
hastened to the scene of action; achieved a
brilliant victory on the banks of the Boristhenes,
or Dnieper; imposed a tribute on the
conquered people, and reduced them to unmurmuring
submission. This potent monarch—who
might be called the Sclavonic Charlemagne or
Charles the Twelfth—is the king to whom Tennyson
alludes in a noble sonnet written "On hearing
of the outbreak of the Polish insurrection"
(1830):

O for those days of Piast, ere the Czar
Grew to this strength among his deserts cold;
When even to Moscow's cupolas were roll'd
The growing murmurs of the Polish war!
Now must your noble anger blaze out more
Than when from Sobieski, clan by clan,
The Moslem myriads fell, and fled before;
Than when Zamoyski smote the Tartar Khan;
Than, earlier, when on the Baltic shore
Boleslaus drove the Pomeranian.

The history of the second Boleslaus, surnamed
the Bold, is distinguished by many romantic
incidents, and has much of an Oriental colour in
the violence of its transitions from good to evil
fortune. This monarch seems to have constituted
himself the general protector and reinstator
of deposed sovereigns. With this
object, he successfully conducted expeditions into
Bohemia, Hungary, and Russia, and in the last-
mentioned country subdued by famine the city
of Kiev. Kiev was at that time the richest, the
most splendid, and the most luxurious, town in
Muscovy. To this day, it is a place of great
interest and beauty, picturesquely situated, and
abounding in records of the past. Seated on
two rocky eminences, separated by a deep ravine,
it presents a wild vision of old churches, richly
adorned; of massive earthen walls enclosing the
more sacred precincts of the city; of cathedral
pinnacles and palace towers, rising from the
clustering boughs of aged trees; of sculptured
gates, towering belfries and obelisks, and gilt
cupolas connected by golden chains. The
catacombs of the ancient monastery of St. Anthony,
founded two centuries before the time of
Boleslaus the Second, are even now visited by fifty
thousand pilgrims every year from all parts of
Russia, who troop there to adore the hundred
bodies of Russian saints, which the dryness of
the air keeps in admirable preservation. Kiev
is the Holy City of the Muscovites—their
object of superstitious regard and aspiration,
as Mecca is to the Moslem. In the middle of
the eleventh century, when subjected by the
Polish conqueror, it was a sacred city too; but
it was also a centre of enervating enjoyments,
though it is said by modern travellers to be now
detestable as a residence. Boleslaus treated the
vanquished citizens with great generosity, and
took up his abode among them for many years,
almost forgetting his native country in the
attractions of his new capital. But the voluptuous
delights to which he resigned himself had
the worst influence on his character. He became
sensual, haughty, and despotic, and was only
roused from his blissful trance by tie outbreak
of a rebellion in Poland. The wives of Iris military
followers, offended by the long absence of
their husbands, took to their serfs. Intelligence
of this arriving at Kiev, the warriors, without
asking permission of their leader, hurried back
with the determination of taking revenge; but
they found this no such easy task as they had
supposed. Stimulated by the exhortations of
their mistresses, and by the necessity of
defending their lives to the utmost, the serfs armed
themselves, seized on the fortresses, and resisted
with great valour and obstinacy; the women
fighting by their sides, and singling out their
husbands wherever they could distinguish them from
the mass. The struggle was prolonged for a
considerable time; in the midst of it Boleslaus
arrived from Kiev, with a vast army made up
of Russians and Poles; swept down upon both
of the contending parties, and quenched the
feud in blood. An evil time for the king ensued
upon the restoration of peace. He got into a
quarrel with the Bishop of Cracow, somewhat
like that which our Henry the Second had with
Thomas à Becket; and it led to a similar
termination, for the bishop was murdered while
officiating in his cathedral. In consequence of
this crime, Boleslaus was excommunicated by
the Pope, and deprived of his sovereignty; his
kingdom was laid under an interdict; he was
abandoned by his subjects, and forced to fly
into Hungary. Some of the monkish writers
say that he died a violent death about the year
1080; but it is more generally supposed that he
took refuge in a monastery in Carinthia, and
expired there in the humble capacity of cook,
after having tasted all the power and glory
of empire, and all the pleasures of alluring
Kiev.

The third and fourth Polish monarchs, bearing
the name of Boleslaus, conducted successful
expeditions against the German Empire and
Prussia, though some of their undertakings
were not so fortunate. The third sustained
a defeat at the hands of the Russians; and the
fourth, after subduing Prussia, and converting
its inhabitants, at the point of the sword, into
very doubtful Christians, fell into an ambuscade
which the treacherous converts had laid for him,
aud barely escaped with his life. This Boleslaus
reigned about the middle of the twelfth century;
and early in the following century there was a
fifth of the same name a weak and
supertitious monarch, who suffered his kingdom to be
ravaged by the Tartars.

Vladislav and Sigismund are two other names
frequently borne by Polish kings, and associated
with many warlike achievements and memorable
events. We find, also, the name of Zamoyski
rendered illustrious at different periods by three
eminent nobles. The most remarkable of the
triad was the first, who died in 1005, after