T. Michelet's La Pokgwe Martyr. (Paris, Dentn ; Bruxelles, Lacroix.)—M.
Michelet's sympathetic nature is so bent on wielding the pen, which becomes a powerful weapon in his hand in favour of the weak, that he can hardly bring himself to acknowledge when common justice may be due to the strong. His advocacy of the Poles and all the oppressed nationalities of Europe has been so fervent and so lasting that, more than any other living French writer, he had a right to raise his voice and glorify the " Niobe of nations." His present glowing plaidoyer, in which the words gash out, fervid, eloquent, and scalding, from an overflowing, indignant heart, has, however, not been composed for the occasion. Unless we are greatly mistaken, ex- cept the preface, we have met with all these graphic pages in the form of separate pamphlets ; but they do not lose their interest on that account. The reprint shows once more that a sympathetic mind is the truest prophet ; for the fats which M. Michelet predicted as far back as 1846, 1848, and 1851, to Russia, then the incubus of Liberal Europe, has come to pass in our days, and he may well say, " When I told and foretold what people see now, and that long ago, whom had I with me ? Nobody !" Russia had always speculated on inspiring a feeling of terror, on " a permanent '93 ;" her constitutional weakness was unravelled as soon as one antagonist boldly rose against her. M. Michelet's book contains three parts- 1st, Kosciusko, a noble biography of "the last knight and first citizen of Eastern Europe ;" 2nd, Les Martyrs de la Russie, the sad history of Poland in the present century ; and 3rd, Revolution du Danube.
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