The Books and the Pilgrimage of the Polish Nation, translated
from the Polish, is a series of connected political parables, in which the language of the Scriptures is adopted, and something of their poetical vein. There is much that is Oriental in the genius of Poland, and such is the spirit of this prose poem : it will probably be found too Eastern for the English taste : if, however, it excites the sympathies of but a few in behalf of this injured country, it will, we imagine, have answered the expectations of its translator. It is by the celebrated MICRIEWICZ. This is a specimen. Rulers of France, and sophists of France, who speak so much of freedom, and kneel to despotism, ye shall fall between your own people and foreign despotism, like a cold piece of iron between the hammer and the anvil.
Ye shall be beaten, and the dust of you and the sparks shall fly to the ends of the world, and the people will say, " Verily, the forging there is great, as in the forge of hell."
And ye will cry to the hammer, which is your people, " 0, people ! pardon and relent, for we have spoken of freedom." But the hammer will answer, "You spoke this, and acted otherwise. And it shall fall with a still heavier weight upon the glowing iron pole." And ye will call on foreign despotism, like to a (leaf anvil, "0, Despotism, we were thy servants, relax and make us an opening, that we may escape from the hammer." And Despotism will answer them, " Ye acted otherwise, and spoke otherwise." And it will still more raise its hard and cold shoulders, till the iron pole be struck SD thin as not to be cognizable at all. Rulers of England, and sophists of England ! you pride yourselves on your ancestry, and say, " My grandfather was a lord, and great grandfather a king ; let us, therefore, live in friendship with our relations, the magnates and the kings of Europe." And lo ! the days will come when ye shall cry to the people, " Pardon, and leave us alive, for in our family there was not one King —not one Lord—not one Esquire."
And ye merchants and bankers of both nations! thirsty for gold, and for paper that represents gold, ye sent your money for the crushing of freedom. And lo ! the days will come when ye shall lick your gold, and gnaw your papers, and nobody will be found to bring you bread and water.
Ye have heard of famines, in which mothers fed upon their own children, but your hunger shall be greater; fur I tell you, that ye will cut off the ears of your living neighbours, and of yourselves, and shall roast and eat them. For ye have deserved to be without your ears, like malefactors.
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