centre from which this movement
issued, and Brodziriski one of the foremost defenders of the new
principles and the precursor of Mickiewicz, the appearance of whose
ballads, romances, "Dziady" and "Grazyna" (1822), decided the war in
favour of romanticism. The names of Anton Malczewski, Bogdan Zaleski,
Severyn Goszczynski, and others, ought to be cited along with that of
the more illustrious Mickiewicz, but I will not weary the reader either
with a long disquisition or with a dry enumeration. I have said above
that Polish poetry had become more of a people's poetry. This, however,
must not be understood in the sense of democratic poetry.

The Polish poets [says C. Courriere, to whose "Histoire de la
litterature chez les Slaves" I am much indebted] ransacked with avidity
the past of their country, which appeared to them so much the more
brilliant because it presented a unique spectacle in the history of
nations. Instead of breaking with the historic traditions they respected
them, and gave them a new lustre, a new life, by representing them under
a more beautiful, more animated, and more striking form. In short, if
Polish romanticism was an evolution of poetry in the national sense, it
did not depart from the tendencies of its elder sister, for it saw
in the past only the nobility; it was and remained, except in a few
instances, aristocratic.

Now let us keep in mind that this contest of classicism and romanticism,
this turning away from a dead formalism to living ideals, was taking
place at that period of Frederick Chopin's life when the human mind is
most open to new impressions, and most disposed to entertain bold and
noble ideas. And, further, let us not undervalue the circumstance that
he must have come in close contact with one of the chief actors in this
unbloody revolution.

Frederick spent his first school holidays at Szafarnia, in Mazovia, the
property of the Dziewanowski family. In a letter written on August
19, 1824, he gives his friend and school-fellow William Kolberg, some
account of his doings there--of his strolls and runs in the garden, his
walks and drives to the forest, and above all of his horsemanship. He
tells his dear Willie that he manages to keep his seat, but would
not like to be asked how. Indeed, he confesses that, his equestrian
accomplishments amount to no more than to letting the horse go slowly
where it lists, and sitting on it, like a monkey, with fear. If he had
not yet met with an a