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After several partial engagements, in which | to Sierakovsky preventing the eastern Russian the Polish general showed great skill, and his army, under Suwarrow, from passing the troops great bravery, the allies, who, be- latter stream. But Sierakovsky was no match sides their losses in action, suffered severely for the conqueror of Ismail. Suwarrow for want of provisions, retreated from Warsaw came on him by surprise, and almost destroyon the 5th of September. The Polish proved his army in a series of engagements, inces, which the late treaties of partition had which were all desperately fought, but all given to Prussia, now rose in arms. Kosci- completely lost by the Poles. Suwarrow adusko sent one of his best generals, with a vanced rapidly as far as Bresck, and Kosconsiderable number of troops, to aid them, ciusko was obliged to quit his own position and in a short time nearly the whole of Great near the Vistula, in order to protect the capPoland was in the hands of the patriots; an ital. Leaving Prince Poninski, with a third advantage which seemed to compensate for of his army, to guard the Vistula against the loss of Lithuania, which the Russians Fersen, he himself took a central station at had reconquered while the first siege of War- Lukow, and concentrated the scattered Polish saw was proceeding. forces for the purpose of making a bold effort to crush Suwarrow, who had moved forward to Bresck with such haste, that only a portion of his troops had been able to keep up with him. But Fersen completely outmanoeuvred Poninski, and, on the 8th of October, succeeded in placing his whole army on the right bank of the Vistula, so that only a few score miles of open country now separated the two Russian armies from each other.

But the Czarina was resolved to crush the Polish insurrection at any cost and at all hazards. She therefore ordered her celebrated general, Suwarrow, to march with his army of victorious veterans from the frontiers of Turkey, through the south-eastern provinces of Poland upon Warsaw. Kosciusko, after the deliverance of the capital from the Russian and Prussian troops that had attacked it from the south-west, had followed the retreating enemies for some distance southward of that city, and had established his headquarters on the left bank of the Vistula. The Russian general, Fersen, who, after the departure of the King of Prussia, assumed the chief command of the allies, and who was speedily reinforced by several divisions of his countrymen, was posted on the opposite bank. The news of Suwarrow's approach on the east, obliged Kosciusko to prepare an army to oppose this fresh antagonist. General Sierakovsky, one of the best of the Polish officers, was accordingly sent with fifteen thousand men to check the advance of Suwarrow.

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At this time ten thousand of the Polish troops were employed in watching the Austrians. Several thousands, under Madalinski, were actively engaged in southern Prussia. Lithuania had exhausted an army; Warsaw required a garrison; and the main Polish army, under Kosciusko, was reduced to seventeen thousand men; and a large proportion of these were recruits, imperfectly armed and disciplined. The want of natural barriers, which characterizes Poland, and her want also of frontier fortresses, made the task of defending her with the slender means at Kosciusko's disposal peculiarly difficult. The rivers Vistula and Bug offered the only lines of defence; and while Kosciusko himself kept the western Russian army, under Fersen, from crossing the former, he trusted

Kosciusko felt the instant necessity of fighting his enemies before their junction could be completed, and, for that purpose, leaving one of his generals, Mokranovski, with some troops to retard Suwarrow, he himself hastened, with about eleven thousand men, to Maciovice, where he ordered Poninski to join him, with the intention of then attacking Fersen, whose troops were near that town. But Fersen attacked Kosciusko himself before Poninski came up. The decisive battle was fought on the 8th October. The numerical superiority of the Russians was not very great, but Fersen's men were veterans, and he had a large force of cavalry and of guns, while Kosciusko was almost entirely destitute of artillery and horse, and his soldiers were chiefly half-disciplined and half-equipped volunteers. Still the battle was long and well contested, and the Polish infantry held their ground stubbornly for hours, in hopes of Poninski's division coming up to aid them. At length the superior fire of the Russian artillery, and the charges of their horse regiments on the flank of the Poles, broke the left wing of Kosciusko's army, and spread confusion throughout his line. Collecting his principal officers round him, Kosciusko made a desperate effort to redeem the day by a charge, which he headed in person, against the Russian centre. But his little band was overwhelmed with numbers, and cut down almost to a man: he himself received several severe wounds, and fell to

the ground, mournfully exclaiming, "Finis | and in this country, he lived for many years Poloniæ !" in retirement in the neighborhood of Paris. He saw through the selfish ambition of Na

His words were too true. Within a few days after his defeat and capture, the Rus-poleon, and honorably refused either to serve sians drove the remnants of the Polish armies under him himself, or to try to persuade his before them into Warsaw. On the 4th of No- countrymen to become soldiers of fortune vember, Suwarrow stormed Praga, the forti- under the French eagles. When solicited to fied suburb of that city. Warsaw itself ca- do so, he replied, "What, despotism for despitulated on the 6th, and the final treaty of potism? The Poles have enough of it at partition ensued, by which Austria, Russia, home, without going so far to purchase it at and Prussia divided the last remains of Poland the price of their blood." In 1814, he wrote among them, and one of the most ancient, and to the Emperor Alexander in favor of the at one time of the most splendid and powerful | Poles, asking for an amnesty for all exiles, states of Christendom, ceased to exist. for a free constitution, like that of England, to Kosciusko himself was recognized and re- be given to Poland, and that schools might spected by the Russian soldiery on the fatal be founded for the education of the serfs. field of Maciovice. His wounds were cured, Disappointed in the hopes that he had formed and though the Empress Catherine caused respecting Alexander's treatment of his counhim to be imprisoned at St. Petersburg, her try, Kosciusko retired to Soleure, in Switzersuccessor Paul released him in 1796. He land, where he closed his blameless and hondeclined rank in the Russian service; and,orable existence in 1817. after passing some time in the United States |

dinner-having wandered far and wide, taking life as it came-now dining with a king, anon sleeping with a brigand-one day killing lions in the Sahara, and the next (according to his own account) being devoured by a bear in the Pyrenees-having edited a daily newspaper and managed a theatre, and failed in both having built a magnificent chateau, and had it sold by auction-having commanded in the National Guard, and done fierce battle with bailiffs and duns-having been decorated by almost every potentate in Europe, so that the breast of his coat is more variegated with ribbons than the rainbow with colors-having published more than any man living, and perhaps as much as any man dead-having fought duels innumerable

MEMOIRS OF ALEXANDER DUMAS. This | popular and copious romancer is about to publish his own "memoir." The Paris correspondent of the Literary Gazette thinks the chances are that the work will be one of the most brilliant of the kind that has yet been published; and that is saying a great deal, when we call to mind the immense host of memoir writers which France possesses. Only a few of Alexander's feats make a sufficiently imposing sentence. "Having mixed familiarly with all descriptions of society, from that of crowned heads and princes of the blood, down to strolling players-having been behind the scenes of the political, the literary, the theatrical, the artistic, the financial, and the trading worlds-having risen unaided from the humble position of subordi- and having been more quizzed, caricatured, nate clerk in the office of Louis Philippe's and lampooned, and satirized, and abused, accountant, to that of the most popular of and slandered, and admired, and envied, than living romancers in all Europe having any human being now existing-Dumas must found an immense fortung in his inkstand, have an immensity to tell, and none of his and squandered it like a genius (or a fool)-contemporaries, we may be sure, could tell it having rioted in more than princely luxury, better-few so well. Only we may fear that and been reduced to the sore strait of it will be mixed up with a vast deal of wondering where he could get credit for his imagination. But n'importe !”

From Blackwood's Magazine.

HENRY TAYLOR.*

THE DRAMAS OF HENRY

THERE is no living writer whose rank in literature appears to be more accurately determined, or more permanently secured to him, than the author of Philip Van Artevelde. Not gifted with the ardent temperament, the very vivid imagination, or the warmth of passion which are supposed necessary to carry a poet to the highest eminences of his art, he has, nevertheless, that intense reflection, that large insight into human life, that severe taste, binding him always to a most select, accurate, and admirable style, which must secure him a lofty and impregnable position amongst the class of writers who come next in order to the very highest. There have been greater poems, but in modern times we do not think there has appeared any dramatic composition which can be pronounced superior to the masterpiece of Henry Taylor. Neither of the Sardanapalus of Lord Byron, nor the Remorse of Coleridge, nor the Cenci of Shelley, could this be said. We are far from asserting that Taylor is a greater poet than Byron, or Coleridge, or Shelley; but we say that no dramatic composition of these poets surpasses, as a whole, Philip Van Artevelde. These writers have displayed, on various occasions, more passion and more pathos, and a command of more beautiful imagery, but they have none of them produced a more complete dramatic work; nor do any of them manifest a profounder insight, or a wider view of human nature, or more frequently enunciate that pathetic wisdom, that mixture of feeling and sagacity, which we look upon as holding the highest place in eloquence of every description, whether prose or verse. The last act of Shelley's drama of the Cenci has left a more vivid impression upon our mind than any single portion of the modern drama; but one act does not constitute a play, and this drama of the Cenci is so odious from its plot, and the chief character por

Philip Van Artevelde: A Dramatic Romance. -Edwin the Fair: An Historical Drama; and Isaac Comnenus: A Play.-The Eve of the Conquest, and other Poems. By HENry Taylor,

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trayed in it is, in every sense of the word, so utterly monstrous, (for Shelley has combined, for purposes of his own, a spirit of piety with the other ingredients of that diabolical character, which could not have coexisted with them,) that, notwithstanding all its beauty, we would willingly efface this poem from English literature. If one of those creatures, half beautiful woman and half scaly fish, which artists seem, with a traditional depravity of taste, to delight in, were really to be alive, and to present itself before us, it would hardly excite greater disgust than this beautifully foul drama of the Cenci.

The very fact of our author having won so distinct and undisputed a place in public estimation, must be accepted as an excuse for our prolonged delay in noticing his writings. The public very rapidly passed its verdict upon them: it was a sound one. The voice of encouragement was not needed to the author; nor did the reading world require to be informed of the fresh accession made to its stores. If we now propose to ourselves some critical observations on the dramas of Mr. Taylor, we enter upon the task in exactly the same spirit that we should bring to the examination of any old writer, any veritable ancient, of established celebrity. We are too late to assist in creating a reputation for these dramas, but we may possibly throw out some critical suggestions which may contribute to their more accurate appreciation.

In Philip Van Artevelde, the great object of the author appears to have been to exhibit, in perfect union, the man of thought and the man of action. The hero is meditative as Hamlet, and as swift to act as Coriolanus. He is pensive as the Dane, and with something of the like cause for his melancholy; but so far from wasting all his energies in moody reflection, he has an equal share for a most enterprising career of real life. He throws his glance as freely and as widely over all this perplexing world, but every footstep of his own is planted with a sure

and certain knowledge, and with a firm will. His thoughts may seem to play as loose as the air above him, but his standing-place is always stable as the rock. Such a character, we need not say, could hardly have been selected, and certainly could not have been portrayed with success, by any but a deeply meditative mind.

It is often remarked that the hero is the reflection of the writer. This could not be very correctly said in instances like the present. A writer still lives only in his writings, lives only in his thoughts, whatever martial feats or bold enterprises he may depict. We could not prophesy how the poet himself would act if he had been the citizen of Ghent. It is more accurate to content ourselves with saying that the delineation of his hero has given full scope to the intellectual character of the author, and to his own peculiar habits of thought. For if the great citizen of Ghent combines in an extraordinary degree the reflective and the energetic character, our author unites, in a manner almost as peculiar, two modes of thinking which at first appear to be opposed he unites that practical sagacity which gives grave, and serious, and useful counsels upon human conduct, with that sad and profound irony-that reasoned despondency—which so generally besets the speculative mind. All life is-vanity. Yet it will not do to resign ourselves to this general conclusion, from which so little, it is plain, can be extracted. From nothing, nothing comes. We must go back, and estimate by comparison each form and department of this human life—which, as a whole, is so nugatory. Thus practical sagacity is reinstated in full vigor, and has its fair scope of action, though ever and anon a philosophic despondency will throw its shadow over the scene.

As it is a complete man, so it is a whole life that we have portrayed in the drama of Philip Van Artevelde. The second part is not what is understood by a" continuation" of the first, but an essential portion of the work. In the one we watch the hero rise to his culminating point; in the other we see him sink-not in crime, and not in glory, but in a sort of dim and disastrous twilight. We take up the hero from his student days; we take him from his philosophy and his fishing line, and that obstinate pondering on unsolvable problems, which is as much a characteristic of youth as the ardent passions with which it is more generally accredited; we take him from the quiet stream which he torments, far more by the thoughts he throws upon it, than by his rod and line.

"He is a man of singular address In catching river-fish,"

says a sarcastic enemy, who knew nothing of the trains of thought for which that angling was often a convenient disguise. A hint given in the drama will go far to explain what their hue and complexion must have been. The father of Philip had headed the patriotic cause of the citizens of Ghent; it had triumphed in his person; the same citizens of Ghent had murdered him on the threshold of his door. When he was a boy, the stains of his father's blood were still visible on that threshold: the widowed mother would not suffer them to be removed, and, nursing her revenge, loved to show them to the child. There was something here to color the thoughts of the young fisherman.

But passion and the world are now knocking at the heart of the meditative student. Love and ambition are there, and, moreover, the turbulent condition of the city of Ghent seems to forbid the continuance of this life of quietude. The passions of the world crave admittance. Shall he admit them? The great theatre of life claims its new actor. Shall he go? Shall he commit himself once and for ever to the turmoil and delusions of that scene-delusions that will not delude, but which will exercise as great a tyranny over him as if they did? Yes; he will go. As well do battle with the world without, as eternally with his own thoughts; for this is the only alternative youth presents to us. Yes, he will go; but deliberately: he will not be borne along, he will govern his own footsteps, and, come what may, will be always master of himself.

Launoy, one of Ghent's bravest patriots, has been killed. The first reflection we hear from the lips of Artevelde is called forth by this intelligence. It does not surprise him.

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I never looked that he should live so long. He was a man of that unsleeping spirit, He seemed to live by miracle: his food Was glory, which was poison to his mind Of many thousand such that die betimes, And peril to his body. He was one Whose story is a fragment, known to few. Then comes the man who has the luck to live, And he's a prodigy. Compute the chances, And deem there's ne'er a one in dangerous times Who wins the race of glory, but than him A thousand men more gloriously endowed Have fallen upon the course; a thousand others Have had their fortunes foundered by a chance, Whilst lighter barks pushed past them; to whom add

A smaller tally, of the singular few

Who, gifted with predominating powers,
Bear yet a temperate will, and keep the peace.
The world knows nothing of its greatest men."

If ambition wears this ambiguous aspect to his mind, it is not because he is disposed to regard the love of woman too enthusiastically.

"It may be I have deemed or dreamed of such.
But what know I? We figure to ourselves
The thing we like, and then we build it up
As chance will have it, on the rock or sand:
For thought is tired of wandering o'er the world,
And home-bound fancy runs her bark ashore."

Yet, Artevelde is at this time on his way to Adriana to make that declaration which the Lady Adriana is so solicitous to hear. This a lover! Yes; only one of that order who hang over and count the beatings of

their own heart.

reflects, render back the life they have
destroyed:-

"Life for life, vile bankrupts as they are,
Their worthless lives for his of countless price,
Is their whole wherewithal to pay the debt.
Yet retribution is a goodly thing,

And it were well to wring the payment from
them,

Even to the utmost drop of their heart's blood."

Still less does the patriotic harangue of Van Den Bosch find an enthusiastic response He was already too much a statesman to be a demagogue; not to mention that his father's career had taught him a better estimate of popularity, and of all tumultuary enthusiasm:

"Van Den Bosch. Times are sore changed, I
see. There's none in Ghent

That answers to the name of Artevelde.
Thy father did not carp or question thus
When Ghent invoked his aid. The days have
been

When not a citizen drew breath in Ghent
But freely would have died in Freedom's cause.
Artevelde. With a good name thou christenest
the cause.
True, to make choice of despots is some free-

dom,

Launoy being destroyed, and the people of Ghent having lost others of their leaders, and growing discontented with the stern rule of Van Den Bosch, some new captain or ruler of the town is looked for. The eyes of men are turned to Philip Van Artevelde. He shall be captain of the Whitehoods, and The only freedom for this turbulent town, come to the rescue of the falling cause; for, Rule her who may. And in my father's time of late, the Earl of Flanders has been every-We still were independent, if not free; where victorious. Van Den Bosch himself makes the proposal. It is evident, from hints that follow, that Artevelde had already made his choice; he saw that the time was come when, even if he desired it, there was no maintaining a peaceful neutrality. But Van Den Bosch meets with no eager spirit ready to snatch at the perilous prize held out to him. He is no dupe to the nature of the offer, nor very willing that others should fancy him to be one.

"Not so fast.

And wealth from independence, and from wealth
Enfranchisement will partially proceed.
And were I linked to earth no otherwise
The cause, I grant thee, Van Den Bosch, is good;
But that my whole heart centred in myself,
I could have tossed you this poor life to play
with,

Taking no second thought. But as things are,
I will resolve the matter warily,
And send thee word betimes of my conclusion.

Van Den Bosch. Betimes it must be; for some
two hours hence

I meet the Danes, and ere we separate
Our course must be determined.
Artevelde.

In two hours,

Your vessel, Van Den Bosch, hath felt the If I be for you, I will send this ring

storm;

She rolls dismasted in an ugly swell,
And you would make a jury-mast of me,
Whereon to spread the tatters of your canvas."

In token I have so resolved."

He had already resolved. Such a man

would not have suffered himself to be hemmed in within the space of two hours to It is worth noticing how the passion of make so great a decision; but he would not revenge, like the others, is admitted to its rush precipitately forward; he would feel post; admitted, yet coldly looked upon. his own will at each step. He had already He will revenge his father. Two knights, resolved; but his love to Adriana troubles Sir Guisebert Grutt and Simon Bette, (we him at heart: he must first make all plain wish they had better names,) were mainly and intelligible there, before he becomes instrumental in his murder. These men captain of the Whitehoods. From this inhave been playing false, by making treacher-terview he goes to Adriana; and then follows ous overtures to the Earl of Flanders; they a dialogue, every sentence of which, if we will be in his power. But they cannot, he were looking out for admirable passages for

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