VOL. 2.] Biographical Portraits.-General Kosciusko. 391 Her volume of "Miscellaneous Dra is so unskilfully constructed, that the principal character is rendered exceed- mas" contains a few pieces which are ingly disagreeable, although by a slight probably more calculated to succeed in alteration this defect might have been representation than those which she has avoided: it is a defect of the same sort published on her system; but, as draas that which we have remarked in her matic works, they cannot be ranked very management of the policy of the Duke high: they abound in descriptive poeof Mantua in Basil. Had she from the try, and in examples of intellectual mofirst acquainted the audience that the tion, expressed with the most admirable rival candidates were brothers, the inte- propriety; for it is in these things that rest of the equivoque would have been Miss Baillie excels, and it is for them obtained, and we should not have been that her works will be read with delight constantly irritated, till the very last and instruction, when the works of more scene, against the senseless pride of the fashionable poets are forgotten, with legitimate. It is this want of indirectly all the associations which have given informing the audience of the relative them such extensive currency. Miss condition of her chief characters, that Baillie must be satisfied with the reobliges her to lengthen out the fable by nown of being the greatest metaphythe long interlocutory conversations of sical poet, and, one of the most extraortheir attendants. Were her dramas re- dinary female characters, that has ever cast in their structure by any person ac- appeared; nor think that she suffers quainted with the business of the stage, injustice from those who pay her the and capable at the same time of under- tribute of their admiration as such, when standing the metaphysics of different they say, that they regret she should characters, some of them might acquire ever have appeared a candidate for disa place among the stock pieces of the tinction as a dramatist. theatre. But curtailment of the dia- Besides the three volumes on the logue, or any change of incident, such as passions, and her miscellaneous volume, we sometimes see in altered pieces, will she has published a separate piece, not do the original sin of their nature called, "a Family Legend," which was is so inveterate that they must be en- performed at Edinburgh, and afterwards tirely renovated. in London. THE From the Literary Gazette, Nov. 15, 1817. MEMOIR OF GENERAL KOSCIUSKO. But HE life of Kosciusko, connected as sent abroad at the expense of that instituit was with great events, will form tion. He then visited France for the a history; in the mean time the follow- first time. Improved by the knowledge ing sketch may be agreeable. he had acquired in his travels, he returnMen who have defended the laws ed to his native country in the hope of and independence of their native country, devoting his talent to her service. without dishonouring so just a cause by the ardour of his passions now threw him any unworthy action, or political crime, out of the career which he was afterdeserve that their memory should receive wards destined to pursue with so much the homage of public respect at the time honour. An adventure, which arose out the tomb encloses their mortal remains. of the attachment entertained by young To mention Kosciusko, is to mention a man who has been honoured even by those Sovereigns, against whom he fought in defence of the legitimate government of his country. Kosciusko for the daughter of the Marechal of Lithuania, compelled him to quit Poland. He proceeded to the United States, where he served with distinction as an Aide-de-Camp under General Washington. General Thaddeus Kosciusko was descended from a 'noble Polish family. He He returned to Europe, and the Diet received his first education at the military of Poland, which stood in need of so school of Warsaw, and was afterwards brave a defender of the national inde 392 Biographical Portraits.-General Kosciusko. [VOL.2 pendence, appointed him a Major-Gen- He was, like his old general, under the eral. Kosciusko did not disappoint the necessity of assisting in every depart hopes of his compatriots. During the ment;-directing the administration of war of 1792, he, with four thousand the Republic, procuring supplies of promen, defended a post which he had for- visions, levying troops, superintending tified in the space of twenty-four hours, the payment of contributions; and like and which was attacked by a corps- Washington he was seconded in the perd'armée of sixteen thousand Russians. formance of these numerous duties, by After a battle of six hours, near Dubien- the confidence and patriotism of his ka, he retreated almost without loss. countrymen, that is to say, by the great But it did not depend on him to avert mass of the Poles; for even amidst the the destiny which awaited his country. general enthusiasm there were several Peace was signed, and Poland was re- examples of cowardice and treachery; duced to a ridge of territory. Koscius- and Kosciusko may perhaps be reproachko having retired from the service, went ed for not having adopted measures for to fix his residence at Leipsig. obliging all to contribute, even in spite of Poland, in spite of her weakness, still themselves, towards the general good. continued to struggle with her enemies. The partisans of anarchy about this Kosciusko was solicited once more to time obtained a fatal ascendancy in the take up arms in the cause of his country- Polish councils. King Stanislaus could men, a duty which he was easily pre- no longer maintain a crown which had vailed on to fulfil. Inspired by his as- for a length of time been tottering on his sistance, several of the most ardent Re- head; he was merely a prisoner, for publicans rose in insurrection in 1794, whom some slight sentiments of respect before they had adopted the necessary were entertained. Kosciusko, who was measures for maintaining the war. invested with an equivocal authority, Kosciusko published an energetic mani- could neither repress the anarchy, nor festo, placed himself at the head of the dispense with the support of the anarchinsurgents, took Cracow, and being mas- ists. An ill-regulated government was ter of this second capital, he appealed to therefore established, and Kosciusko rethe Poles for the re-establishment of the signed his dictatorial authority, like constitution of 1791. Twenty thous- Cincinnatus, whom he seemed to have and men assembled under his banners; adopted as his model. He nevertheless Warsaw and Wilna declared themselves continued to serve his country by his in favour of the republican cause. He valour. Being opposed to the Russian defeated twelve thousand Russians near General Fersen, near Macriewitz, he reRaclawitz, with a corps of four thousand pulsed him on three successive occasions; men. His success enabled him to raise but on the fourth attack the Polish lines an army of fifty thousand men, among were broken, and thrown into confusion. whom, however, only twenty thousand Kosciusko, covered with wounds, fell were regular troops; the remainder be- from his horse, exclaiming, "Finis Poloing peasantry armed with scythes. With niæ," and was made prisoner by the this irregular and undisciplined army, conquerors. This was, in fact, the ter he maintained himself against one hun- mination of the Polish republic. Sudred thousand enemies during a long waroff took Warsaw, and an Austrian campaign. The Prussians besieged army penetrated to Lublin. Warsaw, which was furnished with only On being conducted to Russia, the a few hastily constructed entrenchments. brave Kosciusko received the highest tesKosciusko defended this position, until timonials of esteem from the Emperor the diversion made by Dombrowski and Paul I. That Sovereign restored him Madalinski induced the Prussian army to liberty as well as his companions in to retrograde. The Polish general was arms, and gave him an estate with 1500 no sooner rid of the Prussians, than he serfs, a present, however, which was but beheld the approach of a numerous Rus- little acceptable to the defender of Posian army. The instructions which he land. He now resolved to quit Europe, had received from Washington now prov- and having declined receiving the sum ed of the most essential service to him. of 12,000 rubles which the Emperor VOL. 2.] Lines on Kosciusko.-Naturalists' Diary for February. 393 Paul ordered to be presented to him, he of respect and veneration, surrounded by departed with his friend, the poet Niem- his consoling recollections, a few faithful cevitz, for London, from whence he em- friends, and the poor to whom he proved barked a second time for America. Hav- a constant benefactor. He expressed a ing spent a few years in the society of wish that the utmost simplicity might be his old companions in arms, he returned observed at his funeral, and that his morto Europe in 1798, and fixed his resi- tal remains might be borne to the grave dence in France. by the poor." ON THE DEATH OF KOSCIUSKO. To sigh forth sorrow, from the heart's recess, Buonaparte wished to make use of The following lines, written immedithe name of Kosciusko as a means of ately on seeing an account of the death exciting the Poles to insurrection; but of this Patriot Soldier, have been transthe experienced and skilful General mitted to us. quickly foresaw his designs, and refused to become an accomplice. He continued to reside on an estate which he had purchased in the neighbourhood of Fontainbleau. When the war broke out in 1801, new offers were made to him; and though Kosciusko gave a decided refusal, yet his answer was misrepresented and published without his knowledge. He had no opportunity of publicly discovering this fraud until the year 1814; but the truth was well known throughout Europe, and the government of Buonaparte regarded Kosciusko as a suspected individual. When the Russians entered Champagne, in 1814, they learnt with astonishment that their old enemy was living peaceably in the neighbourhood. The Generals treated him with the highest consideration, and it is even said that the Emperor Alexander held a long interview with him. No consideration however could induce Kosciusko to end his days in Poland; he went to pass the last years of his life in Switzerland. He expired at Soleure on the 16th of October. "He lived," says the Gazette de Lausanne, "in tranquil retirement, where he had become the object ON Lo, Pity largely weeps, and Freedom sighs, Than to inscribe the records of their fame ? Than when the laurels of its fancy wave How Kosciusko and Sarmatia fell! And Memory's rays entwine it to each breast; And where on loftiest flight Fame's pinions soar, THE NATURALIST'S DIARY FOR FEBRUARY. From "Time's Telescope." G. L. N the approach of winter, in Russia, floors, under the carpets, are covered with double windows are put up in all the felt. The stoves produce a temperature houses, having the joints and interstices in the most spacious apartments and halls caulked and neatly pasted with paper. which annihilates all thoughts of winter. This precaution not only fences against In February, the weather in our cli cold and wind, but secures a free prospect mate is usually variable, but most ineven in the depth of winter, as the panes clined to frost and snow. of glass are thus never incrusted with ice. The outer doors, and frequently the 3C ATHENEUM. Vol. 2. The effects of cold are more sudden, and, in many instances, more ex 394 Naturalists' Diary-Winter Markets at St. Petersburgh. [VOL. 2 traordinary and unexpected, than those hogs, fowls, butter, eggs, fish, all stiffened of heat. He, who has beheld the vege into granite. table productions of even a northern The fish are attractively beautiful, summer, will not be greatly amazed at possessing the vividness of their living the richer and more luxuriant, but still colour, with the transparent clearness of resembling growths of the tropics. But wax imitations. The beasts present a one, who has always been accustomed to far less pleasing spectacle, mcst of the view water in a liquid and colourless larger sort being skinned, and classed state, cannot form the least conception according to their species: groups of of the same element, as hardened into an many hundreds are seen piled upon their extensive plain of solid crystal, or cover- hind legs against one another, as if each ing the ground with a robe of the purest were making an effort to climb over the white. The highest possible degree of back of its neighbour. The motionless astonishment must, therefore, attend the yet apparent animation of their seemingly first view of these phenomena. struggling attitudes (as if suddenly seized But, it is not to their novelty alone in moving, and petrified by frost) gives that they owe their charms. Their a horrid life to this dead scene. Had an intrinsic beauty, perhaps, is individually enchanter's wand been instantaneously superior to that of the gayest objects pre- waved over this sea of animals during sented by other seasons. Where, indeed, their different actions, they could not is the elegance and brilliancy that can have been fixed more decidedly. Thei compare with that which decorates every hardness, too, is so extreme, that the tree and bush on the clear morning natives chop them up for the purchasers succeeding a night of hoar-frost? Or, like wood. All the provisions which what is the lustre that would not appear remain, on the commencement of a dull and tarnished, in competition with a thaw, immediately putrefy; but as the field of snow just glazed over with a duration of the frost is generally calcu frosty incrustation? What can be more lated to a day, but little loss is suffered in beautiful than the effect of snow and this respect. frost at a mill-dam, or rather, where the mill-wheel dashes? Cowper has given us a most picturesque description of this circumstance, when he tells us, how 'scornful of a check' the 'snowy weight' leaps The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel, A curious circumstance occurred at Stockholm, in the winter of 1799. A sugar house taking fire, a number of engines immediately hurried to the spot. But the water being frozen to the depth of a yard in every place near the street, it was necessary to break the ice with hatchets and hammers. The water, when procured, was continually stirred, to prevent it from freezing. In the upper stories of this building was de posited a large stock of sugar, and many vessels full of treacle, which being broken by the falling in of the roof, the juice ran down along the sides of the walls. The water thrown up to the top of the house by the engines, and flowing back on the walls, staircases, and through the windows, was stopped in its downward To those who are unaccustomed to course by the mighty power of the frost. the various changes produced by the After the fire was extinguished, the influence of intense frost, nothing can engines continued for some time to play, appear more wonderful than the winter and the water they discharged was frozen market at St. Petersburgh. The aston- almost the very instant it came it conished sight is there arrested by a vast tact with the walls already covered with open square, containing the bodies of ice. Thus a house was formed of the many thousand animals, piled in pyra- most extraordinary appearance that it is midical heaps, on all sides; cows, sheep, possible to conceive." It was so curious VOL. 2.] Naturalists' Diary-Norwegian Skating Corps. 395 an object, that every body came to gaze "Cavalry," he says, "could neither at it as something wonderful. The pursue them nor escape their pursuit; whole building, from top to bottom, was and, as they are sharp-shooters, they incrusted with a thick coat of ice; the might in the long run destroy the whole doors and windows were closed up, and of an invading force, however numerous in order to gain admission it was necessary it might be. It was chiefly owing to with hammers and hatchets to open a them that the Swedish army, sent, in passage; they were obliged to cut through 1718, by Charles XII. against Dronthe ice another staircase, for the purpose theim, in the month of December, was of ascending to the upper stories. so obstructed in its march, as to be re All the rooms, and what remained of duced to perish in the snow." the roof, were embellished by long He gives in the Appendix, a more stalactites of multifarious shapes, and of particular account of the equipment a yellowish colour, composed of the and mode of individual operations of the treacle and congealed water. This Skielöber-Corpset, or Corps des Patinbuilding, contemplated in the light of the eurs; operations, however, which can sun, seemed to bear some analogy to seldom have any object more martial those diamond castles that are raised by than the pursuit of game. the imaginations of poets. It remained "Figure to yourselves a pair of boards, upwards of two months in the same each of the breadth of the hand, and state, and was visited by all the curious. hardly the thickness of the little finger; The children in particular had excellent a little hollowed along the middle on the amusement with it, and contributed not side toward the ground, to prevent a little to the destruction of the enchanted wavering, and to cut a straight line. palace, by searching for the particles of sugar, which were found in many places incorporated with the ice. Hunting and shooting are among the favourite amusements of this season. In the moor, and the marsh, and the fen, Both are bent upward at the ends, a little higher before than behind. They are bound on the feet with two straps, passed through them at the middle, where the wood is left a little higher and thicker for this purpose. The board for the right foot has often a facing of reindeer or sea-dog skin; the advantage of Skating, also, is much practised by young which is, that in bringing forward the persons. During hard frosts, in the fens feet alternately and in parallel lines, the of the Isle of Ely, men, women, and skater can give himself a strong impetus children, use their snow-pattens, or skates on the right foot, by means of the hold almost as much as they do in Holland. which the hair of this skin has on the The skaters of Norway, however, eclipse snow, as, though perfectly slippery in all other skaters, in their formidable going the right way, it is roughened, and equipments, as well as their extraordinary resists in any inclination of the skate to feats of hardihood. M. Lamolle, a re- an opposite movement. cent traveller in Norway, gives us the "It is affirmed, that a practised skater following singular description:-'In a can go, as soon as the snow is a little visit to the Military Institution his at- hardened, faster and for a longer time, tention was particularly excited by an even on a level ground, than the best article not found in the ordinary appara- horse trotting on the best road. But in tus of war, a kind of wooden skates, of descending a mountain, he darts with which the one for the left foot is from such a velocity, that he would absolutely eight to ten feet long and three or four lose his breath if he did not endeavour to inches broad; the one for the right foot moderate his flight. He ascends with is only about three (another account says comparative slowness and some difficulty, six) feet long. M. Lamotte says, there as he is obliged to go zig-zag; but is a regiment of chasseurs, numbering nevertheless he reaches the top as soon nearly a thousand men, trained to the as the best footman.' He has the advanuse of these skates or pattens, and that, tage, besides, that however little firmness in certain circumstances, they would be the snow may have acquired, he cannot almost irresistible. sink. The arms (of this regular corps) |