emselves poets, or had
poets associated with them in business. Each was guided by his poet,
as Wallenstein by his astrologer. The establishment depended on
its dramatic ability, while its performances were limited almost
exclusively to the productions of its poet. The better companies,
however, were in the habit of making contracts with each other, by
which they exchanged the plays of their dramatists. This limitation to
native productions perhaps grew partly out of the want of familiarity
with foreign literature, partly from national feeling, and partly from
the fact that the Polish taste was as yet little affected by that of
the Germans, French, or English. In these circumstances there sprung
up a poetic creative faculty, which gave promise of a good and really
national drama. And even now, after wars, revolutions, and the schemes
of foreign rulers have alternately destroyed and degraded the stage,
and after the Poles have become poetically as well as politically
mere satellites of French ideas and culture, there still exist, as
respectable remains of the good old time, a few companies of players,
which, like their ancient predecessors, have their own poets, and
perform only his pieces, or at least others of Polish origin that he
has arranged and adapted. Such a company, whose principal personage
is called Richlawski, is now in Little Poland, in the cities Radom,
Kielce, Opatow, Sandomir, &c. A second, which generally remains in the
Government of Kalisch, is under the direction of a certain Felinski,
and through his excellent dramatic compositions has gained a
reputation equal to that of the band of Strauss in music. Yet these
companies are only relics. The Polish drama in general has now a
character and destiny which was not to be expected a hundred years
since.

The origin of the Russian theater is altogether more recent. It is
true that Peter the Great meddled a good deal with the theater as well
as with other things, but it was not till the Empress Catharine
that dramatic literature was really emancipated by the court. Under
Alexander and Nicholas the most magnificent arrangements have been
made in every one of the cities that from time to time is honored by
the residence of the Emperor, so that Russia boasts of possessing five
theaters, two of which excel everything in Europe in respect to size
and splendor, but yet possesses no sort of taste for dramatic art. The
stage, in the empire of the Muscovites, is like