in the project, and was not quite
ready to consent to be dismembered to gratify the whim of empress and
emperor.

As for the city of Kherson, its site was badly chosen, and its seeming
prosperity and populousness during the empress's presence quickly passed
away. The city has remained, but its actual growth has been gradual, and
it has been thrown into the shade by Odessa, a port founded some years
later without a single flourish of trumpets, but which has now grown to
be the fourth city of Russia in size and importance. Of late years
Kherson has shown some signs of increase, but all we need say further of
it here is that it has the honor of being the burial-place of the shrewd
Potemkin, under whose fostering hand it burst into such premature bloom
in its early days.

_KOSCIUSKO AND THE FALL OF POLAND._

Of the several nations that made up the Europe of the eighteenth
century, one, the kingdom of Poland, vanished before the nineteenth
century began. Destitute of a strong central government, the scene of
continual anarchy among the turbulent nobles, possessing no national
frontiers and no national middle class, its population being made up of
nobles, serfs, and foreigners, it lay at the mercy of the ambitious
surrounding kingdoms, by which it was finally absorbed. On three
successive occasions was the territory of the feeble nation divided
between its foes, the first partition being made in 1772, between
Russia, Prussia, and Austria; the second in 1793, between Russia and
Prussia; and the third and final in 1795, in which Russia, Prussia, and
Austria again took part, all that remained of the country being now
distributed and the ancient kingdom of Poland effaced from the map of
Europe.

Only one vigorous attempt was made to save the imperilled realm, that of
the illustrious Kosciusko, who, though he failed in his patriotic
purpose, made his name famous as the noblest of the Poles. When he
appeared at the head of its armies, Poland was in a desperate strait.
Some of its own nobles had been bought by Russian gold, Russian armies
had overrun the land, and a Prussian force was marching to their aid.
At Grodno the Russian general proudly took his seat on that throne which
he was striving to overthrow. The defenders of Poland had been
dispersed, their property confiscated, their families reduced to
poverty. The Russians, swarming through the kingdom, committed the
greatest excesses, while Warsaw, which had fallen