glad though, for I love you, that when you read this letter you also should feel the calmness and strength of soul which I enjoy; I should be glad to pour into you my whole soul, for you would then have that peace and courage which I trust will not fail me in my last moments. I might console you in the same way as those who, not knowing me, have the kindness, or feel it their duty, to console me, with the idea that the Czar may send on a commutation of my punishment. They seek to console me, for they do not know that I need no consolation. I ought to follow their example, for I know that you are in need of consolation; but having been open and sincere through my life-time, I will not be false to truth now. I therefore avow to you without argument, for I trust you will believe me, that the decree not only does not disturb my tranquillity, but actually yields me gratification. If you could see me, you would read in my countenance the truth of this confession. The same truthfulness makes me add, that if it should really prove as my friends hope, if the decree of death should be commuted by the Czar to imprisonment, torture, or exile to Siberia, then I should be indeed really unhappy. Then your sympathy and tears for me would be justifiable. I trust you will agree with me, that it is far better to die once by the hand of the executioner, than to die by inches through many years in some dungeon or in the mines of Nerezynsk. You too will gain by this decree. You will bewail me (this they cannot forbid you), but my memory will be rendered more pleasing by the conviction that my soul is unpolluted, and that I died bathed with your tears and those of my numerous friends; for I had friends whom I loved, wherever I went. As this is doubtless the last letter I shall write you, I wish to assure you, my mother, in order to alleviate the sufferings which you will feel on my account, and to sweeten the remnant of your life, that I die with a clear conscience. Should the malice or stupidity of men, when I am no more, torment you by calumniating my name, or representing my life in a false light, should there be such as would inflict upon you even this form of suffering, do not believe them, mother, for my conscience is clear in every respect, and my life has known no crimes. I am guilty in the sight of government, and for this I am to suffer death; but in the sight of mankind, of honor, of uprightness, in spite of the most difficult situations in which I have been placed, even in the sight of God, mother, I am guiltless, save of those sins to shun which one must be more than a man; save of those sins, I shall not be judged, nor doubtless punished.

"I have yet one petition to make of you all; of you all, because I know that you, mother, and you, Stanislaus, are poor. Although the sum is trifling, yet the frequency with which I have importuned my family, and the unwillingness which I feel of late to put myself under an obligation of this sort, make me address you all upon this subject. I owe 50 Prussian dollars to Mr. Weber of Leipsic, and 100 francs to Mr. De Roy, of Chaudes-fonds, in Switzerland. Send them the money addressed as follows: à Monsieur Weber, à Leipzig, asking his pardon for the delay, and assuring him of my friendship and gratitude, and à M. De Roy, à Chaudes-fonds, also assuring him of my friendship and gratitude.

"I cannot help asking you, if circumstances should allow it, to take leave of her who through my affections, through the choice of my soul, becomes related to you. I loved her and in spite of the enormity of the sufferings with which the late events have overwhelmed my soul, I love her still. I do not know whether my poor dear Emily can remember me long, when her heart is torn and bleeding. I do not ask it of her. I should not wonder if she should entirely forget me since her whole family are in prison. I would not however have any other one for my wife, should my life be spared. Bid farewell to her and to her whole family for me. Ask them in my name to forgive the tears and sufferings which they have endured on my account. They are now all imprisoned, but their innocence will be proved and they will be freed.

"You, Stanislaus, I know, love your mother. Remember that she has suffered much in her life-time through the malice of men; but did she suffer justly? God will judge. Remember that to your own, you add all my anxiety, all my love, for her. Let not my death delay your marriage. Do not put on any external signs of mourning for me. I do not know your future wife. I have only one observation to make to you therefore: Remember that he who marries charges himself with solemn duties to his wife for his whole life.

You have a good understanding and experience. I believe, therefore, that you will be happy. Receive, therefore, as it were from heaven, the blessing of your Simon, together with that of our father and all of our family who have left the world. I know you will often think of me and of Emily. There in Heaven I will wait for you all, for here, in the age in which you live, wherein one must endure the torments of hell if he would be honest, life is a burden. You will some day, Stanislaus, tell your children of your brother Simon, who lived in this world an

honest man. If you have a son, call him in remembrance of me, Simon James, and if a daughter, call her Emily.

"As to the things I shall leave behind, I was told they would become the property of the government. Although I well know that the government does not need a few pieces of rags, yet it may be they will not be sent to you as a remembrance of me. I leave them entirely to chance. I will not ask for permission to send them An importunity of this kind will displease the authorities, and the more since so many of my requests are refused.

to you.

"Mother! dear mother! have courage, have a heart to bear the blow that awaits thee. Remember that Stanislaus still lives, and that you should spare your life for the sake of his children. What would he do in this world if you should yield yourself up to despair and doubly bereave him? I have done with this world, and will not be unhappy; but poor Stanislaus, left alone, would lead a sad existence. I, though alone on my way to the other world, can bear a separation, for I have been for a long time accustomed to it. May you be happy, may you be free. May you enjoy at least half as much of happiness as I have suffered misery. Farewell! and do not mourn for me. We ought to mourn not for those who are gone, but for those who are left behind. Love each other, live virtuously, and you will be happy inwardly, and your death will be as light to you as mine is to me. Stanislaus! do not court luxuries; do not wish for more than you have, and God will bless your house.

"I do not know how soon I shall be executed, but it is all the same to me whether it be a day, a week, or a month hence. Good night! my dear relatives! By the side of my aunt's grave in Rumbowicze, put up a plain stone, without any inscription, in memory of me, for my life has been plain. There I hope to be present with my aunt, either to rejoice or to sorrow with you. I trust God will allow me this; and when you two have joined us, we will all resort thither to smile over the pains we have endured in

this life.

"To-day, as the priest tells me, I am to be shot. Farewell, my friends, and put your trust in God as I do.

"SIMON KONARSKI."

He finished this letter before daylight. The turnkey informed him, by order of Prince Dolhoruki, that he might write down his wishes referring solely to himself. He wrote three of them: 1st. that he might take leave of his fellow prisoners; 2d. that Emily

should be set free; and 3rd. that the things he left behind him should be sent to his family. The first two requests were granted; the last, as he foresaw, was not.

Agreeably to his request, on the 27th of February, at day-break, Rodziewitz was admitted into his cell. At sight of the old man, the cause of so many misfortunes, a painful expression passed over Konarski's countenance, but he subdued the bitterness of his feelings, and said to him, mildly: "I willingly forgive you all you have sinned against me. May our country and our fellow martyrs likewise forgive you. You have sinned only through weakness; you have sinned through your old age." of others, and by many a lofty truth When Orzeszko was brought in, he he strengthened their weaker hearts. struggled with himself for some time, but finally conquered himself and forgave him.

Afterwards he took his last farewell

After these painful adieus, he called to him Sokolow, known for his cruel treatment of prisoners, and requested him to buy for him a pair of broadcloth pantaloons with the money his mother had left him. "It is so cold now," said he, "it may cause me to tremble, and the people may think that I tremble "that he had no permission to do so, Sokolow answered, through fear." and besides, the distance was not great.'

Shortly after, a friar of St. Bernard came to hear him confess. Konarski kindly took him by the hand, and said: "Father! I am sure God will forgive me the sins I have committed, for I have suffered much. I have endured much for my country and mankind. Though I am a Calvinist, your blessing is as needful to me as that of my own pastor. Bless me, then, as your son, as a follower of the cross, and I shall die in peace.' The monk shed tears, blessed him, and said not a word of a reconciliation with the Church of Rome, so much was he moved by the grandeur of the martyrdom. A Protestant clergyman, named Lipiuski, was afterwards sent for. Before he was found the clock struck ten. When he arrived, he found Konarski taking tea, of which he partook with him. They conversed together of the salvation of the soul, and of the nothingness of worldly possessions, and read the penitential psalms.

At eleven o'clock, Konarski made

known that he was ready, and smoothing down his light hair, which fell on his shoulders, put on a blue worsted cap made by Emily's hands, and over his summer dress, in which he had been arrested, he threw a grey cloak, and descended to the yard surrounded by gens-d'armes. On his departure, he desired Sokolow to distribute his remaining six roubles among the soldiers that were to fire at him.

In the meantime, the inhabitants of Wilna, before eight o'clock, received notice, printed in the Russian language, to this effect: "To-day, at eight o'clock, A. M., an emissary conspirator, Simon Konarski, will be punished with death for treason against the State. The place of the execution will be Execution Square, beyond the gate of Trock. Whoever wishes to witness the just punishment of the criminal may go there." Notwithstanding the severe cold, from eight o'clock to twelve the whole population of Wilna poured forth into the street leading to Execution Square, and there awaited the arrival of the martyr, who was then to shed his blood for his country.

To detract from the grandeur of this awfully impressive scene, the prisoner was led away from the convent through a back gate leading into the Police Alley. There he was put into a one-horse sleigh, with Lipinski on his right, and numerous gens-d'armes surrounded him. While this group was passing the market squares beyond the gate of Trock, Konarski requested the soldiers to make way that the people might behold and take leave of him. The gensd'armes could not refuse so innocent a request. As the route turned to the street of Trock, and wound up the hill on which a great multitude of women were collected, waving their handkerchiefs bedewed with tears, and with prolonged sobs bidding him farewell, Konarski, deeply moved, raised his arm, encircled by a heavy chain, and exclaimed: "Do not weep for me, for in a moment I shall be free. Weep rather for yourselves!" As he approached the gate of Trock, he gazed, with a certain natural degree of pride, upon the immense mass of his countrymen bidding him their lamenting farewell, and turning to Lipinski, said with a smile, "Many a king would envy me a funeral train so numerous and so gorgeous. From the gate they turned to

VOL. XIII.-NO. LXV.

the left of the road leading to Trock, in the direction of the highlands, opposite the place of public amusements, called Pohulanka, till they reached the square. That spot, as if to excite a longing for this world, presents a beautiful view. From there is seen Wilna, covering the dale with its white houses, the Ponarskie Mountains rising towards the south, and the Wilia meandering along its way amongst hills and valleys. On alighting here, Konarski's eye, which till now had been lifted up to higher worlds, was irresistibly fixed upon the beautiful wintry landscape, as though he said in his heart, "Oh, Nature! thou art always bountiful and beautiful. Thou art the image of thy Creator, but the creatures that live on thy bosom disgrace their high origin!" Or perhaps he had a livelier thought, for he gazed as if he wished to imprint for ever on his memory the situation of his grave, and carry this picture, as in a mirror, to a happier land.

All this lasted but a minute. They hurried him along, for the decree condemning him had to be read in public. The commanding officer of the city, General Kwietnicki, and many of the higher officers were present. After the reading of the decree, Konarski took the paper and, with great coolness, looked at it and said, "He (the Czar) has signed it with pale ink, but his sentence will be signed with blood." Lipinski, standing by his side, strengthened his spirit with pious words. Konarski, affectionately pressing his hand, thanked him for his Christian service; then turning to the Russian officers, he bowed to them, but they simultaneously embraced him; and, spite of the presence of the commandant, dared to take leave of the state criminal as of a brother and a martyr. And this was just and natural, for was he not, in the spirit of the gospel of nations, their brother and a martyr for their sake?

This conduct of the officers displeased the general so much, that when Konarski approached him and said, in a voice of calm courage, "General! grant me one favor. Let not my eyes be blinded," Kwietnicki turned his back upon him, and his countenance spoke this language-" Thou art unworthy, villain! that I, a faithful servant of the Czar, should speak to thee!"

Konarski was then brought near the

grave, surrounded on three sides by ranks of soldiers, and on the fourth by the civil, military and police officers. Beyond these were an immense multitude of the people. Music, consisting of fifes and drums, struck up a wild march as if to give courage for the perpetration of the murder. With such a march Suwarrow must have led his hordes to the butchery at Prague. Three grey watchmen surrounded the prisoner. One carried a death robe, another a white sash, and the third a handkerchief, with which to blind his eyes. As they were putting on the robe, his blue cap fell from his head. He picked it up and drew it tightly on again. His arms were then tied behind with the long sleeves of his shirt, he was girded with his sash, his eyes were blindfolded, and he was placed beside a post. At a silent order, twelve soldiers stepped forward, commanded by a sergeant. The officer that was to command was taken ill, and no other one would take his place. A gloomy silence reigned over the vast multitude. Each one could hear only the beating of his own heart. The order was at length given, the locks snapped, the twelve muskets echoed, and when the smoke cleared away, there lay the body of the martyr, pierced with balls. With the noise of the muskets mingled the prolonged groans of the people, filling the air even to the heart of Wilna.

The watchmen were the first to throw themselves upon the corpse. They took from it the blue cap, and commenced lowering the body into the grave. But the multitude at this time broke through the ranks of soldiers and crowded in from all sides. Some carried away pieces of the martyr's garment as relics, others dipped their handkerchiefs in his blood; and though the police endeavored by blows to keep

off the intruders, one of the students seized the cap from a watchman, and another carried away the cloak. The police endeavored to arrest the patriotic thieves, but the protecting multitude closed before them in a solid wall. From noon till late at night the inhabitants of Wilna flocked to the grave of their martyr. A patriotic lady suggested to a few others of her sex, that the grave should be ornamented with flowers, which was instantly done; each of them brought secreted under her cloak a flower-pot to deposit on the snowy hillock, which grew rapidly into a blooming garden. While some on their knees poured forth prayers mingled with fervent tears, for the soul of the departed, others planted crosses and flowers about the grave. The commandant at last sent his aids to request them to desist, stating that the spot was not a church, nor a fit place for prayers, and that the government would be displeased with their proceedings.

In this manner, though the individuals had to give their names at the gates, was Konarski's grave visited for three days. The post by the side of which he suffered death was cut up with pen-knives for relics. It is even said that some of the patriots had his body taken out and buried in the cemetery, while the chains which were taken off were made into finger-rings, which were even worn by many of the officers belonging to the corps of General Geismar. Many of them were persecuted for having thus honored the memory of the martyr, and some were sent into Siberia.

Such was the end of the life of Simon Konarski. His spirit, like that of another God, hovers over our country, and even now fills with fear the oppressors of our native land.

AFTER the works of fiction with which the cheap presses had fed their readers so abundantly as to have surfeited them with light unsubstantial food, we are served at last, with good, plain, strong, and yet not unsavory nutriment-no less a book than the celebrated Chronicles of Froissart; and, if we may judge of the eagerness with which the mass of readers have purchased these, from the fact of having observed several cabmen intently occupied in perusing them at their stands, we should infer that the enterprising publisher has been well repaid for having better appreciated than his rivals the soundness of the public taste.

Not that we censure the diffusion of the imaginings of Cervantes, Le Sage, Cooper, Scott, Chateaubriand, Edgworth, Sedgwick, Gore, Bulwer, St. Pierre, Bremer; but we believe that the only class of readers to whom the lascivious and grotesque productions of Paul de Kock,and his wretched imitators, are likely to give delight, are Americans who have lived just long enough in Europe to vitiate their native taste, and to pick up as much French as will enable them to understand what they fully believe to be French wit, and correct delineations of Parisian society.

An enlightened critic has said that, to form a just opinion of any intellectual work, we ought to stand halfway between an excessive distance from, and too near a proximity to the epoch of its composition. If this be a sound canon of criticism, applicable to events as well as to books recording them, this generation, placed at equal distances from two social orders, stands on ground from which can be viewed, and rightly appreciated, both the social order of which Froissart has been the inimitable annalist, and the new system brought about by altered circumstances, changed habits, younger and healthier opinions. We are not so far removed from the former, as to find it difficult,

by Davegac

either to procure the records of the past, or to discover in them, as well as in our own opinions and prejudices, even the minutest springs of events, and the motives of actors. On the other hand, though surrounded by the ruins of that system, which the revolutions of the last seventy years have strewn over the two continents, like the armor of the vanquished scattered over an immense field of battle, we are, nevertheless, no longer under the sway of the revolutionary passions that first impressed their own life and power upon the new social order.

It was with thoughts like these, that we commenced the perusal of Froissart, in the translation. We had read the original in early youth, charmed then much more with the gorgeous coloring, the romantic interest of the events, and the heroic character of the epoch, than with the admirable art with which the author preserves the unity of the great drama, without confusion or intricacy, through incessant changes of scene and two generations of actors. If, like Ariosto, sporting with our curiosity, the chronicler often interrupts his narration at the very moment when we are following it most eagerly in the expectation that it will lead us out of the mazes of our uncertainty, like the Tuscan poet too, he never loses sight of it, and seizing again the golden thread, with a master's hand weaves it into the woof of the complex texture, of which it is only one of the countless filaments. As we proceeded, a new light seemed to have descended upon the weird pages. The entire fabric of feudality rose before our eyes; not such, however, as it has been portrayed by authors who sought only to elucidate that form of government in relation to such portions of it as, still preserving their vitality, continue to pervade our legislation, but, the actual everyday workings of that system, in the society it had created, and which for