phin did; and that in
fact the poor Dauphin never got the least benefit from it,--being
guillotined, he, in 1793, and the Book intended for him never coming to
light for fourteen years afterwards, it too in a posthumous and still
unfinished condition.

"Rulhiere has heard the voices of rumor, knows an infinitude of events
that were talked of; but has not discriminated which were the vital,
which were the insignificant; treats the vital and the insignificant
alike; seldom with satisfactory precision; mournfully seldom giving
any date, and by no chance any voucher or authority;--and instead of
practical terrestrial scene of action, with distances, milestones,
definite sequence of occurrences, and of causes and effects, paints us
a rosy cloudland, which if true at all, as he well intends it to be, is
little more than symbolically or allegorically so; and can satisfy no
clear-headed Dauphin or man. Rulhiere strives to be authentic,
too; gives you no suspicion of his fairness. There is really fine
high-colored painting in Rulhiere! and you hope always he will let you
into the secret of the matter: but the sad fact is, he never does. He
merely loses himself in picturesque details, philosophic eloquences,
elegancies; takes you to a Castle of Choczim, a Monastery of
Czenstochow, a Bay of Tschesme, and lets off extensive fire-works that
contain little or no shot; leads you on trackless marches, inroads or
outroads, through the Lithuanian Peat-bogs, on daring adventures and
hair-breadth escapes of mere Pulawski, Potocki and the like;--had not
got to understand the matter himself, you perceive: how hopeless to make
you understand it!"

English readers, however, have no other shift; the rest of the Books I
have seen,--_Histoire des Revolutions de Pologne;_ [1778 (A WARSOVIE, ET
SE TROUVE A PARIS), 2 vols. 8vo.] _Histoire des Trois Demembremens de la
Pologne;_ [Anonymous (by one FERRAND, otherwise unknown to me), Paris,
1820, 3 vols. 8vo.] _Letters on Poland;_ [Anonymous (by a "Reverend
Mr. Lindsey," it would seem), LETTERS CONCERNING THE PRESENT STATE OF
POLAND, TOGETHER WITH &c. (London, 1773; 1 vol. 8vo): of these LETTERS,
or at least of Reverend Lindsey, Author of them, "Tutor to King
Stanislaus's Nephew," and a man of painfully loud loose tongue, there
may perhaps be mention afterwards.] and many more,--are not worth
mentioning at all. Comfortable in the mad dance of these is Hermann's
recent dull volume; [Hermann, _Geschicht