Chapter 2

"According to the laws of Poland, a commission, chosen by the citizens, has the right of examining and auditing the accounts of the town. From the tyrannical system adopted by the officers who were continually about the person of the grand duke, they dared not perform their duty from fear of his displeasure, and probably, at the instigation of the miscreants around him, being consigned to a prison; remonstrances were, however, generally made at the half-yearly meeting of the commission; though, up to the period immediately before the revolution, nothing was done to check the evil. In the month of September a circumstance occurred, not important in itself, but of great weight in the future course of events. _Janiszewski_, a cidevant officer in the army, had sent several petitions to the president of the town, which were treated with neglect and insult. He and the president met in the street, when the latter again insulted him. This was immediately resented by the former, who inflicted severe corporal chastisement on the latter. The grand duke refused to interfere in the affair. A trial ensued, in which some abuses of the president were exposed, and _Janiszewski_ sentenced only to forty days' imprisonment. This affair, and this decision, created a strong sensation at the time; and emboldened the commission appointed to investigate the affairs of the town-house to insist on their rights. The commission, being at length roused by the numerous abuses that were pressed on their attention, obtained an order from the minister of the interior to proceed in the execution of their duties. They immediately formed themselves into branch committees, each two taking cognizance of a department. The task of investigating the abuses in the quartering of the officers devolved on two citizens, called _Schuch_ and _Czarnecki_. They found, on inquiry, that the owners of large houses were induced to compromise with the billetmaster for a sum in cash equal to one-fourth, and in some instances to one half of the amount of rent, in lieu of having a general or any number of inferior officers quartered on them. In Warsaw many of the houses contain from fifty to a hundred families; consequently, the billet-compensation money was a grievous tax. The mass of extortions were found to exceed in reality any previous estimate. A new scene now opened to view. Those gentlemen received evidence that the Russian generals _were participators in the pillage of the town_, and in league with the president and billet-master. Feeling that they should be detected in proceedings so disgraceful, they consulted a lawyer (_Wolinski_,) to know if the researches of the committee could not be legally prevented. His opinion was given in the negative; but, in order to divert the public mind from the investigation, he advised _Czarnecki_ to provoke one of the commission to strike him, when he should be able to prosecute him for attacking an _employé_ and by that means get rid of the investigation. _Czarnecki_ used the most insulting language to Mr. Schuch, and in a fit of desperation seized hold of his arm, with the intention of putting him out of the room by force. The committee-man being on his guard, the manoeuvre failed. _Czarnecki_, seeing himself foiled, his iniquity discovered, and his ill-gotten wealth likely to be confiscated, committed suicide, and thus left the president and generals to fight their own battles. The artillery of Messrs. _Schuch_ and _Czarnecki_ was now directed against the whole of the Russian and two Polish generals, the notorious and unprincipled _Raznieki_, the head of the secret police of the kingdom, and _Kossecki_. Means had in vain been tried to bribe Messrs. _Schuch_ and _Czarnecki_ through the commissary of the circle, that the investigations should cease, or that the generals should not appear to be implicated in the affair. It was ascertained by the investigation that General _Lewicki,_ Russian commander of the town, independently of the lodgings he occupied, received payment for more _than a hundred lodgings_; that General _Gendre_ received payment of 212l. 10s.; that _Philippeus_, cashier to the grand duke, received from the same fund 225l. annually, which was sweetened by a prompt payment of 2,500l., being ten years in advance; and that the coachmen and lackeys of the grand duke and generals received money from the same fund, instead of wages from their masters. As the inflexibility and integrity of those gentlemen were proof against all bribes, the generals foresaw the impending storm which threatened to break and overwhelm them. In this critical situation, they conceived one of the most atrocious plots on record. Its object was to create a disturbance, by which the town-house should be set on fire, and the documents which implicated them in the pillage should be consumed. They agreed to produce this by arming a number of students; and their agent was an officer in the army, known to belong to the secret societies. The sum of 200 ducats in gold was paid him as a reward for anticipated services, and 200 stand of arms was provided him. For such a project this man seemed a fit agent. He took lodgings in the house where the students met to hold their deliberations, opened to them his revolutionary views, and represented himself as one qualified to rescue their common country from the grasp of despotism. He so far ingratiated himself into their confidence as to obtain some knowledge of the general plan for the freedom of Poland. Circumstances, however, created distrust of this new and overzealous auxiliary; and the students refused to act with him, or to receive the muskets the generals had provided for distribution. Communication having now ceased between Petrikowski and the students, he took lodgings in the next room to that in which they met to hold their deliberations; what he overheard was communicated to the generals; and ten students were in consequence denounced, arrested, and severely flogged (by an arbitrary order of the grand duke,) to make them divulge their associates. Though writhing under the whip of the executioner, not a word escaped their lips to inculpate their friends, or impart a knowledge of the schemes that had so long engrossed their thoughts. The severity of the punishment may be conceived by the fact, that one of the number died soon after its infliction. The students were kept in solitary confinement, and their punishment remained uncertain; universal sympathy was felt for their sufferings by their comrades, coupled with an ardent desire to relieve them; but by this time danger threatened to implicate a great part of their body, and it was ascertained that an order to arrest a great number was to take place on the 30th November. On the 27th November, an order arrived in Warsaw from the emperor, to send to Riga with all possible despatch 42,000,000 of florins, equal to 1,050,000l. sterling, of which 2,000,000 were to be furnished from the treasury of the minister of war, 28,000,000 from the government treasury, and 12,000,000 from the bank. These two circumstances concurring, created great activity in all persons connected with the overthrow of despotism and the freedom of their country; and it was determined only on the memorable morning of the 29th to commence their patriotic work in the evening."

The Editor's Conclusion, or Summary of the Year is likewise worthy of extract:

"The curtain of the year 1830 dropped on Europe in a state of ferment and agitation, of which it was impossible to check the progress or to foretell the result. The masses of the population had been stirred up from the bottom by the concussion of the French and Belgic revolutions, and could not be expected for a long time to subside into order, or resume a determinate arrangement according to their weight and affinities. The partition wall of privilege, rank, or subordination, interposed between different classes of the European community, had in some cases been forcibly broken down, and in others had been more silently undermined. Antiquity, custom, usage, or legitimacy, which formerly became a shelter to abuses, could not now protect justice and right from threatened innovation. Everywhere power was challenged on its rounds, and compelled to give the popular watchword before it could be allowed to pass. Whether it was a nation that demanded its independence from a foreign power, as in Belgium and Poland; or a people that cashiered their dynasty, as in France and Saxony; or a parliament that changed its administration for a more popular party, as in England; or republics that liberalized their institutions, as in Switzerland,--all was movement and change. The breath of revolution sometimes blew from the suburbs of a capital, as in France; sometimes from the cottages of the peasant, as in the Swiss mountains; but it was every where powerful. No institution was held venerable, no authority sacred, that stood in the way of the popular will. The people had every where got a purchase against their rulers, and had fixed their engines for a further pull. The power of domestic military protection had diminished, in proportion as rulers required its aid; while, at the same time, all Europe seemed arming for a general trial of strength, or a recommencement of conquest. Every kind of reform was the order of the day; financial reform, legal reform, ecclesiastical reform, and parliamentary reform. The year that has just commenced must resolve the character of many of those vague tendencies to change, to war, and confusion, which alarmed some and inspired hope into others at the close of 1830."

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NOTES OF A READER.

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THE DRAMATIC ANNUAL.

Mr Frederick Reynolds, the veteran dramatist, has, by the aid of Mr. W.H. Brooke, produced an amusing and elegant volume of a Playwright's Adventures, under the above title, Mr. Brooke's contributions are a plentiful sprinkling of Cuts, full of point and humour, and dovetailed by the Editor with no lack of ingenuity. The Narrative itself purports to be a series of adventures, or a volume of accidents to a young playwright in quest of dramatic fortune, with a due admixture of love and murder, and "a happy union."--These are relieved by pungent attempts at repartee and harmless raillery, so as to make the dialogue portion glide off pleasantly enough. Instead of quoting an entire chapter from the volume, we are enabled to transfer to our pages a few of its epigrammatic illustrations. First, is what Mr. Reynold calls _l'auteur sifflè_, but this, for the sake of comprehensiveness, we style the damned author.

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Mr. Reynolds seems to hold with Swift, that the merriest faces are in mourning coaches, for his hero at a funeral introduces one of the best cuts. Thus--

On Vivid's return home, his gratification was soon diminished by the recollections of "existing circumstances," and these caused him to sink into a gloomy and desponding state; when Sam Alltact, rather _malapropos_, entered with a black-edged card, inviting his master to the funeral of a deceased acquaintance, an eminent young artist, named Gilmaurs, who, never having been an R.A., but simply an engraver of extraordinary genius, was not to be buried under the dome of St. Paul's, but in a village churchyard.

Vivid could not help remarking to a brother mourner, that, in his opinion, the profession of a painter was as much overrated as that of an engraver was underrated: "for," he added, "what real and unprejudiced connoisseur, while contemplating Woollett's Roman Edifices from Claude, and Sir Robert Strange's Titian's Mistress from Titian, with many others, would not acknowledge, that the copy in many instances so rivalled, if not surpassed, the original, that it became a decided question, which artist ought to carry off the palm?"

"Or, at any rate," cried an odd accordant theatrical companion, "the connoisseur might say, with Shakspeare--

'Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?'"

"There is no doubt, that in any school of painting," continued our hero, "such men as Reynolds, West, and Lawrence, cannot be too much upheld whilst living or lauded and regretted when dead. There is likewise Wilkie--another Hogarth----"

"I beg your pardon," rejoined the theatrical gentleman; "but till I can forget the blunderbuss fired from the upsetting coach, the cobweb over the poor's-box, and the gay parson and undertaker at the harlot's funeral, I cannot allow of the comparison. Besides, I admire Hogarth for another reason: did _he_ consider an engraver's to be an _infradig._ profession? No, for he was the engraver of _his own_ works."

"True," replied Vivid; "and other painters have been engravers. But to the point: look at the variety of the exquisite engravings in the Annuals; and having compared them with the large, coarse, _mindless_ pictures in--what may be called another _annual_--the Exhibition of the Royal Academy, then say, whether you do not prefer the distinct delicate touches of a well-directed _burin_, to the broad, trowel-like splashings of an ill-directed painting-brush?"

"I do; and whilst I bow down to the excellence of such a portrait as that of Charles the First, by Vandyke, or that of Robin Goodfellow, by Sir Joshua, _cum multis aliis_ by painters of the same pre-eminent description--ay, and also whilst I greatly admire numerous pictures still annually exhibited by highly talented living artists, I ask, if I am not to speak my mind relative to that class of painting, which might pass muster outside the inns at Dartford, or Hounslow, or ----. However, 'the lion preys not upon carcasses,' and, therefore, I will leave these canvass-spoilers to the judgment of those, who will show them in their proper light--viz. the hanging-committee."

The funeral being concluded, they return to town, Vivid agreeing with his odd companion in leaving the canvass-spoilers to the _hanging committee_.

Is it not to be hoped that a day may come when a thorough revision and amelioration of our equity laws will be deemed a matter of as great national importance as that chief occupier of the time of our grand _rural Capulets_ and _Montagues_, the revision and amelioration of the game laws.

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TRIAL BY BATTLE.

"Ay, leave lawyers to wrangle amongst each other--a practice which of late years has become so much a legal fashion, that some of our Westminster Hall heroes, forgetting their clients' quarrels in their own, suddenly convert themselves into a new plaintiff and defendant, and brawl forth such home coarse vituperations----"

"True;--formerly they used to brow-beat witnesses, now they brow-beat one another, and so defyingly, that ere long, who knows but the _four_ courts may resemble, as punsters would say, the _five_ courts?"

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KICKING THE WORLD.

Every one has heard of kicking the world before them, though, comparatively, so few succeed in the task. The wights in the cut are in an enviable condition.

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A sketch of one of those inveterate story tellers which are the standing dishes of a _table d'hôte_, introduces one of the best of the cuts, Mr. Blase Bronzely, _loquitur_:

"Well, gentlemen, as I was saying, when I saw at Stratford-upon-Avon the Shakspearean procession pass in the street, it rained so violently that Caliban and Hamlet's Ghost carried umbrellas, whilst Ophelia----"

"Obvious, my dear Blase; or, as a late premier used to say, 'It can't be missed,' 'Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia:' and, besides, your wet ghost is a mere crib from yourself; for whenever you go hunting in cloudy weather, don't you regularly ride with a smart silver parasol over your dear little head?"

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Soon growing tired of lounging in the library, loitering on the pier, and of all the rest of the usual dull sea-side routine, he literally knew so little what to do with himself, that, to kill an hour or two before dinner, he would frequently be seen seated on a tombstone in the churchyard, yawning; staring at the church clock, and comparing it with his own watch;--in short, in some degree resembling

"Patience on a monument."

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The reader will conclude by these specimens that fun and frolic are the characteristics of the _Dramatic Annual_; and we have given him a spice of its best humour. These Cuts, by the way, are in a style which all illustrators would do well to cultivate. We have seen much labour expended on illustrations of works of humour, such as fine etchy work, and points wrought up with extreme delicacy. The effect, however, is any but humorous: you think of painstaking and trouble, whereas a few lines vividly dashed off, by their unstudied style, will ensure a laugh, where more elaborate productions only remind us of effort. Hood's pen-and-ink cuts are excellent in their way--as bits of fun, but not of art. Now, Brooke's designs are both works of fun and art.

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THE FAMILY CABINET ATLAS

Is completed with the Twelfth Part, in the same style of excellence as it was commenced. In this portion are two plates, exhibiting a comparative view of Inland Seas and Principal Lakes of the Eastern and Western Hemispheres--which alone are worth the price of the Part. Altogether, the uniformity and elegance of this work reflect high credit on the taste and talent of every one concerned in its production; and it really deserves a place on every writing-table not already provided with an Atlas. For constant reference, too, it is well calculated, by its convenient size, and is preferable to the cumbrous folio, as well as the varnished, rustling, roller map.

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THE KING'S SECRET.

Hundreds of persons have probably been disappointed by this work--an historical novel, of the time of Edward the Third, by Mr. Power, of Covent Garden Theatre. Scandal-loving people are so fond of concatenation, or stringing circumstances, causes, and effects together, that in the present case they made up their minds to some _secret_ of our times: some boudoir story of Windsor or St. James's, which might show how royalty loves. On the contrary, "the _secret_" does not come out;--the reader is only tickled, his curiosity excited, and the tale, like an ill-going clock, is wound up without striking.

We attempt something like an outline of the plot, although it is just to induce Our reader to turn to the work itself, for we foretel he will be pleased with its details. Artevelde, a beer brewster of Ghent, intrigues with Edward to transfer the coronet of Flanders from Count Lewis to the young Prince of Wales. The scheme fails, and Artevelde perishes in an affray with the citizens In his negotiations he had employed his daughter, and dispatched her on one occasion, in a private yacht, to the Thames, to confer with the King. In her passage she is observed and recognised by the follower of a Flemish noble, who has a direct interest in defeating Artevelde's scheme for the marriage and settlement of his daughter, who, before she reaches the King, is seized by this noble and his agents, but is rescued by a brave young citizen. Here the love begins. This young citizen is the nephew of a wealthy old goldsmith, but he abominates the traffic and filthy lucre of his uncle's profession--for, it should be added, the goldsmiths were the money-jobbers of those days--and aspires to become a soldier of fortune. London was a fitting place for such ambition, for those were chivalrous times. Artevelde's daughter entrusts the youth with the commission, and dispatches him to the King: he acquits himself with courtly discretion, and, having displayed some prowess in a passage of arms, soon obtains an appointment in the royal service. Edward's interview with the lady determines him to start instantly for Flanders, and the young citizen (Borgia) accompanies him. They fall into the hands of the same Flemish noble who had attacked the heroine; but they are rescued, and land at the Flemish coast.--The scheme fails, as we have said: after Artevelde's death, his daughter becomes the King's ward. The interests of the parties now become too complicated for us to follow: we may, however, state that "the King's Secret" is the parentage of Borgia; it was asserted that he was "the very child reported to have been born during the period of Queen Isabella's romantic love passages with Roger Mortimer, at the court of Hainault."--"Be content, therefore, with that you and til here already are possessed of, since what remains is, and must continue, '_The King's Secret_.'"

The heroine is the gemmy character of the story; but, in that of the King so much license has been used as almost to defy its identification with history. Scenes, situations, and sketches, of uncommon interest, abound throughout the work; the manners and customs of the times, and the details of costume and pageant glitter are worked up with great labour--perhaps with more than is looked for or will be appreciated in a novel. Still, they are creditable to the taste and research of the author. Occasionally, there are scenes of bold and stirring interest, just such as might be expected from an actor of Mr. Power's vivid stamp. The storm sketches towards the close of the second volume are even infinitely better than any of John Kemble's shilling waves or Mr. Farley's last scenes. In other portions of the work, bits of antiquarianism are so _stuck on_ the pages as to perplex, rather than aid the descriptions, by their technicality. Here and there too the tinsel is unsparingly sprinkled.

Nevertheless, there is a vividness--a freshness--and altogether a superior interest, in all the details which must render "The King's Secret" a favourite work with the fiction-and-fact-reading public. The scenes are so complicated in their interest, that it is scarcely possible to detach an extract.

In the early part of the first volume occurs a passage relative to the resistance of the people of Ghent to the oppression of their rulers, which smacks strongly of the enthusiasm of liberty.

"Whilst impelled on the one hand by the strong desire to regulate the arbitrary and oppressive exactions, which cramped their energies and held them for ever at the mercy of their despot's caprice, and restrained on the other hand by their habitual reverence for their feudal princes. Artevelde stepped forth, and in their startled ears pronounced the word "_Resist!_" His eloquence was well seconded by the grasping severity of a needy and extravagant court, until gradually combining their wrath and intelligence with the energies of the populace jealous of their rights, the merchants and citizens of the cities of Flanders rose upon the bears and butterflies who infested and robbed them, and, thrusting them forth, set modern Europe the first fearful example of a people's strength, and the rottenness of the wooden gods for whom they laboured. Whilst princes, on their parts, learned a lesson they have not since forgotten or ever ceased to practise, and combining their hosts of slaves, lashed them onward to scare this stranger, Freedom, from the earth, even as in our times of intelligence they have done, and will do; and the brainless slaves, so lashed, shouted and went forward to the murderous work which rivetted their own fetters, even as in our time they have done, and will again do in times to come."

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

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TWENTY YEARS.

BY THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY.