does our Politics,
fights her Seven-Years War across us; and we, happy we, have no
fighting;--never till this of Courland was there the least ill-nature
from Russia! We are become latterly the peaceable stepping-stone of
Russia into Europe and out of it;--what may be called the door-mat of
Russia, useful to her feet, when she is about paying visits or receiving
them! That is not a glorious fact, if it be a safe and "lucky" one; nor
do the Polish Notabilities at all phrase it in that manner. But a fact
it is; which has shown itself complete in the late Czarina's and late
August's time, and which had been on the growing hand ever since Peter
the Great gained his Battle of Pultawa, and rose to the ascendency,
instead of Karl and Sweden.

The Poles put fine colors on all this; and are much contented with
themselves. The Russians they regard as intrinsically an inferior
barbarous people; and to this day you will hear indignant Polack
Gentlemen bursting out in the same strain: "Still barbarian, sir; no
culture, no literature,"--inferior because they do not make verses
equal to ours! How it may be with the verses, I will not decide: but
the Russians are inconceivably superior in respect that they have, to a
singular degree among Nations, the gift of obeying, of being commanded.
Polack Chivalry sniffs at the mention of such a gift. Polack Chivalry
got sore stripes for wanting this gift. And in the end, got striped to
death, and flung out of the world, for continuing blind to the want of
it, and never acquiring it.

Beyond all the verses in Nature, it is essential to every Chivalry and
Nation and Man. "Polite Polish Society for the last thirty years
has felt itself to be in a most halcyon condition," says Rulhiere:
[Rulhiere, i. 216 (a noteworthy passage).] "given up to the agreeable,
and to that only;" charming evening-parties, and a great deal of
flirting; full of the benevolences, the philanthropies, the new
ideas,--given up especially to the pleasing idea of "LAISSEZ-FAIRE, and
everything will come right of itself." "What a discovery!" said every
liberal Polish mind: "for thousands of years, how people did torment
themselves trying to steer the ship; never knowing that the plan was,
To let go the helm, and honestly sit down to your mutual amusements and
powers of pleasing!"

To this condition of beautifully phosphorescent rot-heap has Poland
ripened, in the helpless reigns of those poor Augusts;--the fulness
of time not