Thunder and storm! The ship is tossing—
The dark sea boils—
The wind tears the sail,
        And whistles among the ropes.
The vault of heaven becomes dark,
But I, trusting in the brave ship,
Slumber in my narrow cabin
        As we begin to toss — I sleep—
I dream that the nurse of my childhood
Tosses my cradle,
And, as of old, sings in a low sweet voice,
        " Boiushke Boio— Boiushke Boio."

Presently the storm awakened the poet, and
he heard the quicker trampling on deck—
but again he slept, and this time he was
a child swinging in a garden, and prattling
to his future sweetheart— so through various
artful changes the poet carried the idea of the
motion of the ship affecting the dream of the
traveller.

The next time we met— I and Stanislas — it
was in his painting room again, two days after
Orsini's execution. The London shops were
full of photographs of Orsini, and when I first
went in, Stanislas was very sombre and silent.
He sat with his feet on the fender and his back
to his easel, growling threats and menaces
against tyranny. Suddenly he rose, and advancing
to his easel, threw off a dark cloth that covered
a large picture he was working on; he pointed
to it; it was the portrait of the daring conspirator.
I knew directly, the strong features, and
the close crisp black beard. Stanislas kissed the
picture as he exclaimed, " That man was a fanatic
of patriotism; he would have leaped down the
gulf like Curtius; he would have thrust himself
on the spears with Winkelreid. O would to
God I had died with thee, O infelice! O would
to God I had died with thee."

I did my best to get poor chivalrous Stanislas
work, but I did not obtain him much; for he
was one of those men who, with considerable
originality of genius, could not bind himself to
the drudgery of portrait-painting. I often
wondered, indeed, how he managed to put two ends
together— but by a mere accident I discovered.
Some business led me to call on a celebrated
artist in a distant part of Kensington. When
the servant answered the bell he informed me
that his master was very busy, as it wanted only
a week to the sending-in day of the Academy;
but if I would walk into his studio I should find
him at work. I followed into an ante-room, and
there, from behind a curtain, I saw the artist
and his model. It was a shipwreck picture, and
the model— a fine man, stripped to the waist—
stood with his back turned to me, holding on to
a helm that had been rigged up in the studio
for that purpose. Suddenly the man turned for
a moment to rest himself, and I saw his face.
It was Stanislas. He did not see me, so I
instantly stole back, and telling the servant in a
whisper that I would not disturb his master
then, but would call later in the day, went away
with my secret.

One week from that time, the most illustrious
of the Russian refugees met me in Regent-street,
and casually informed me that poor Stanislas was
dead— carried off in three days by cholera—
attributed to the bad drainage of the Soho region.

Stanislas was buried at Woking Cemetery,
and I followed him to the grave. His coffin
was borne by members of his own Republican
Club— " the Polar Star " club. It was an April
morning. The air was fragrant with the perfumes
of spring. The flowers were opening, the birds
singing. When the coffin was lowered into the
grave, and a yellow wreath of immortelles had
been laid upon its black surface, Monsieur
Ledru Rollin advanced to pronounce the funeral
oration, some passages of which I can still
remember. The orator began thus:

"In a poor street of London, in the poor
garret of a poor house, a holy existence has just
terminated. Poland has one martyr the more—
but she will not refuse to lend us her
martyrology, for we need its pages to teach our
French children.

"Stanislas Polonsky was a holy man. I
emphasize the words a holy man. His whole
existence was devoted to abnegation of self, and
to incessant labour. All that strikes us in the
legends of the saints, was united in him, with
more love, and with more of the human
element.

"Born in opulence, nourished in the bosom
of Polish grandeur, our Stanislas died a poor
broken-hearted republican. He threw away
his titles and abandoned his fortune when his
country was dismembered by tyrants. But his
was no religion of despair. With exile his great
abnegation only began. Alone, in poverty,
abandoned by his children and his wife, he
toiled twenty-six years in exile, to organise the
Polish democratic party, and to unite it with
the Russian. Bowed down by age and misfortune,
he gave his days and nights to this one
work, with that calm serenity, that sweet
resignation, that frank simplicity, which an
immovable faith alone can give to a great
heart.

"No one ever heard a word of complaint from
his lips. He was sometimes sadder than usual,
but he never let fall those cold and bitter words
of doubt and despair by which the exile
sometimes revenges himself for the anguish he has to
suffer. He was one of those pure fanatic natures
who, dominated by one grand thought, arrive at
an unshakable tranquillity, a sweet calmness, an
unbendable resolution.

"Some years ago Monsieur Lamartine
received congratulations on the establishment of
the Republic. Among the rest there was one
group of faces, furrowed by misfortune and
blanched by exile. Their spokesman was our
Stanislas. He said to Lamartine, ' At every
summons of the people, whether in war or
misfortune, Poland has been the first to cry, I
am here! for she saw in every struggle for
liberty, a struggle for Poland; she cries now
again, I am here!'

"Stanislas was the advanced sentinel of Poland,
but the people slept. The faithful soldier fell