ng
on the chances of the day. Here I have thrown off my caterpillar life and
am on the wing--a human dragon-fly, if you will, darting at a thousand
different objects, enjoying the broad sunshine, and speeding through the
wide air. My invincible attachment to my nation here finds its natural
object; for the sons of Abraham are here a _people_. I am a patriarch,
with my flocks and herds, my shepherds and clansmen, the sons of my tribe
coming to do me honour, and my heart swelling and glowing with the
prospects of national regeneration. I have around me a province to which
one of your English counties would be but a sheepfold; a multitude of bold
spirits, to whom your populace would be triflers; a new nation, elated by
their approaching deliverance, solemnly indignant at their past
oppression, and determined to shake the land to its centre, or to recover
their freedom.

"You will speak of this as the vision of an old man--come to us, and you
will see it a splendid reality. But observe, that _I_ expect no miracle. I
leave visions to fanatics; and while I acknowledge the Power of Powers,
which rides in clouds, and moves the world by means unknown to human
weakness, I look also to the human means which have their place in pushing
on the wheels of the great system. The army which has broken down the
strength of the Continent--the force which, like a whirlwind, has torn
such tremendous chasms through the old domains of European power, and has
torn up so many of the forest monarchs by the root--the French legions,
the greatest instrument of human change since the Gothic invasions, are
now marching direct on Poland.

"I have seen the man who is at the head of that army--the most
extraordinary being whom Europe has seen for a thousand years--the crowned
basilisk of France. I own, that we must beware of his fangs, of the blast
of his nostrils, and the flash of his eye. He is a terrible production of
nature: but he is on our side, and, even if he should be finally trampled,
he will have first done our work. I have had an interview with Napoleon!
it was long and animated. He spoke to me as to the chief man of my nation,
and I answered him in the spirit of the chief man. He pronounced, that the
general change, essential to the true government of Europe, was incapable
of being effected without the aid of our people. He spoke contemptuously
of the impolicy by which we had been deprived of our privileges, and
declared his determination