r the poet had heard in St. Petersburg from the famous
Silbermann."(6) Through the whole book runs a humour not often found
elsewhere in Mickiewicz; the reports of the debates in Jankiel's tavern
and in Dobrzyn hamlet are masterly in their blending of kindly pleasantry
with photographic fidelity to truth. The poet sees the ludicrous side of
the Warden, the Chamberlain, the Seneschal, and the other Don Quixotes who
fill his pages, and yet he loves them with the most tender affection. In
his descriptions of external nature--of the Lithuanian forests or of the
scene around Soplicowo on the moonlight night just before the
foray--Mickiewicz shows a genius for throwing a glamour of poetic beauty
over the face of common things such as has never been surpassed. Finally,
the whole poem is perfect in its proportions; from its homely beginning,
with pictures of rural simplicity and old-fashioned hospitality, it swells
into rustic grandeur in the panorama of the hunt, and at last reaches the
most poignant tragedy in the scene about the death-bed of Jacek Soplica:
then, lest the impression should be one of total sadness, the narrative
concludes with the magnificent epilogue of the last two books, full of
hopes of rescue for Poland, full of gaiety and courage. A large epic calm
pervades the whole. The age-long conflict between Pole and "Muscovite" is
the theme of the epic, but the tone is not that of passionate hatred and
revolt such as fills _The Forefathers_; human kindliness breathes through
the whole work; not indignation and rebellion, but faith, hope, and love
are at its foundation.

This brief introduction may fitly close with some verses that Mickiewicz
wrote as an epilogue for _Pan Tadeusz_, but which he never finally revised
and which were never printed during his lifetime. Since his death they
have most frequently been inserted as a prologue to the poem rather than
as an epilogue.

"What can be my thoughts, here on the streets of Paris, when I bring home
from the city ears filled with noise, with curses and lies, with untimely
plans, belated regrets, and hellish quarrels?

"Alas for us deserters, that in time of pestilence, timid souls, we fled
to foreign lands! For wherever we trod, terror went before us, and in
every neighbour we found an enemy; at last they have bound us in chains,
firmly and closely, and they bid us give up the ghost as quickly as may
be.

"But if this world has no ear for their sorrows, if at each