though rarely, with curtains. The only double bed, however, is that for the master and mistress of the family; and which is placed in the principal room; the others are mere couches for fingle persons, occupying the corners. In the midst of all these homely appearances, you are much, though agreeably, furprifed at feeing the table fet out with confiderable neatnefs, and abundantly fupplied with good things; among which chicken are only not univerfal, Every plate is furnished with a napkin and a filver fork ;, the courfes are almost as numerous, and follow the fame order as in the house of a nobleman, from which the whole is obviously imitated. There is fome little incongruity in all this, it must be owned; but incongruities of this defcription are abundant in Poland. p. 126. 127.

Our author's account of the peafantry is fingularly unfatisfactory. It is well known, that in different parts of Poland their condition is in every refpect perfectly different; that in the Auftrian divifion, and in fome parts of the Pruffian, they are free; while in others, and over the whole of the Ruffian divifion, they are bondmen, attached to the foil. But Mr Burnett defcribes them as all indifcriminately in this condition; although he never was in Ruffian Poland, and appears to have paffed the greater part of his time in the Imperial territory. The following account must therefore be taken, with feveral material corrections.

When a young peafant marries, his lord affigns him a certain quan, tity of land, fufficient for the maintenance of himself and family in the poor manner in which they are accustomed to live. Should the family be numerous, fome little addition is made to the grant. At the fame time, the young couple obtain also a few cattle, as a cow or two, with fteers to plough their land. These are fed in the ftubble, or in the open places of the woods, as the feafon admits. The master also provides them with a cottage, with implements of hufbandry,-in fhort, with all their little moveable property. In confideration of these grants, the peasant is obliged to make a return to the landholder of one half of his labour; that is, he works three days in the week for his lord, and three for himself. If any of his cattle die, they are replaced by the master; a circumftance which renders him negligent of his little herd, as the death or lofs of fome of them is a frequent occurrence.

When a farmer rents a farm, the villages fituated on it, with their inhabitants, are confidered as included in the contract; and the farmer derives a right to the fame proportion of the labour of the peasants for the cultivation of that farm, as by the condition of their tenure they are bound to yield the lord.

If an eftate be fold, the peafants are likewife transferred, of course, with the foil, to a new master, fubject to the fame conditions as before. The Polish boors, therefore, are fill flaves; and relatively to their political exiftence, as abfolutely fubject to the will of their lords, as in all the barbarifm of the feudal times. They are not privileged to quit the cil, except in a few inflances of complete enfranchifement; and if they

were,

were, the privilege, for the moft part, would be merely nominal: for whither fhould they go? They may retire, indeed, into the receffes of the forefts, where it is poffible they may not be traced; and it is probable, that, in times paft, many reforted to this expedient to efcape from the cruelties of a tyrannical mafter. To fly from a mild mafter would be obviously against their intereft. To quit the territory of one grandee for that of another, muft commonly, if not always, have been impracticable for what landholder would choofe to admit a fugitive peafant, and thus encourage a fpirit of revolt? Again, it is not in their power, from the circumstances of their condition, to fell their labour indifferently to this or that master; and if such obftacles did not oppose, the very extent of the Polish farms, and the confequent want of a fecond contiguous employer, would fuffice, in most cases, to preclude a change of mafters.

It is faid that few of the peasants improve the little stock which is committed to their management, in accumulating fome fmall property; but their conduct is far more frequently marked by careleffnefs and a want of forecaft. Inftances, however, of this accumulation, begin to multiply for one effect of the partition has been, that the peafants are lefs liable to be plundered. Generally fpeaking, it does not appear that this allowance of land and cattle either is, or defigned to be, more than enough for their scanty maintenance. I was once on a fhort journey with a nobleman, when we ftopped to bait at the farm-house of a village, which I have before mentioned as a common cuftom in Poland. The peasants got intelligence of the prefence of their lord, and affembled in a body of twenty or thirty, to prefer a petition to him. I was never more ftruck with the appearance of these poor wretches, and the contraft of their condition with that of their mafter. I ftood at a distance, and perceived that he did not yield to their fupplication. When he had difmiffed them, I had the curiofity to inquire the object of their petition; and he replied, that they had begged for an increased allowance of land, on the plea that what they had was infufficient for their fupport. He added, "I did not grant it them, because their prefent allotment is the ufual quantity; and as it has fufficed hitherto, fo it will for the time to come. Befides (faid he) if I give them more, I well know that it will not, in reality, better their circumstances. " p. 85.

-90.

We apprehend that, upon this important point, our author, if, as we prefume, he refers to Auftrian Poland, has been led into an error, by confounding things extremely different. The peafant, though unfranchised, that is to fay, free to leave the land when he chooses, is bound, while he remains, to pay a certain confideration for his cottage and field, which in Poland has not been commuted into money or any other rent, but is a certain proportion of his labour. In the greater part of the Austrian dominions, this commutation has taken place. We conceive, then, that he has confounded the labour given to the lord in the cultiva

tion of his land, in return for the land allowed to the peasant, with the labour of a ferf, who is indeed fupported by a grant of land, but has no right to give up his fmall property, and retire from fervice. He has probably confounded, alfo, the state of things, between lord and peasant, in point of practice, with their mutual rights and obligations in point of law. For, as the whole peafantry of Poland were certainly in the ftate defcribed by Mr Burnett, until the Auftrian government placed its acquifitions upon a different footing, it is poffible that, in many diftricts, even of Austrian Poland, the proprietors may continue to have nearly the fame authority over the inhabitants on their eftates, by cuf toms which they formerly had by law. This certainly happens in the more remote parts of Hungary, notwithstanding the aboli tion of villenage by Maria Terefa; and the peasants there are, fubject to very confiderable oppreffions. But fuch irregularities, or violations of the law, muft fpeedily be corrected; and their existence, in the mean time, tends rather to the benefit of the community, by converting what in its own nature was a sudden, perhaps a rafh measure, into one of a more gradual operation. The effects of vaffalage, on the manners of the people, it is fcarcely neceffary to remark, must long furvive any fuch changes, whether in the legal rights, or in the actual condition of the fantry. Our author gives us feveral curious examples of this, The custom of a peafant proftrating himfelf when he meets his lord, is wearing out; but even when it is difused, its existence may be traced, in the practice of touching the lower part of the leg of a fuperior, upon receiving any trifling prefent. your feet,' is a common, and even admired expreffion of politenefs. Frequently, in the middle of a large company, the dependants of a nobleman, both men and women, who are admitted to his table, will kifs the fkirts or fleeves of his coat, or any part which they can catch as he paffes, or stands near them.

pea

I kifs

The education of the noble Poles is not fuch as can fit them, either for the more dignified purfuits of the understanding, or for feverer virtues. The children are taught at home, chiefly the more frivolous accomplishments of what is univerfally termed fashionable life. As a Polish nobleman delights in having his table crowded with foreigners, both dependants and guests, he teaches his children, from their earliest years, by an intercourse with those strangers to prattle all their different languages. This gift of tongues, which, it must be owned, they poffefs in an unrivalled degree, together with the ftill more trivial accomplishments which merely tend to the embellishment of the perfon, are reckoned the best fruits of an exalted education. The children are, moreover, introduced into fociety at a very early period;

and

and thus live from their infancy in the idlenefs and diffipation which, among the nobles of other nations, is referved for thofe of riper years. Nothing can be more pernicious both to their moral and intellectual endowments.

The account which our author gives of female manners, is, though fomewhat heightened, upon the whole, confiftent with other information upon this fubject, and presents a picture of great profligacy. The following paffage refers, not merely to this fpecies of corruption, but to a ftill blacker charge against the characters of parents.

There can be no doubt that this paffion for company is a fource of great corruption of manners-a corruption, too, which is aided by the prevalent fentiments on the fubject. Chastity, even in married women, is confidered as ridiculous; and an unlimited latitude is admitted on both fides. Yet in cases where the husband and wife have a real regard for one another, they do not always view with perfect indifference fymptoms of an occafional arrangement on either fide. There is a fort of selfishment in affection very difficult to be subdued. But again, I have obferved in other inftances, that couples who have been notoriously and eminently unfaithful, not only retain a mutual affection and efteem, but feem to like each other the better for their refpective wanderings; and to observe, with a fort of roguifh approbation, any preliminary figns of a foreign negociation.

There is a natural prejudice of no ordinary force among English husbands, (and which, for the purity of our manners, we will hope, is not likely to be eradicated), which makes them curious to know, whether the population of their domeftic territories is attributable exclufively to their own exertions, or whether it has been at all promoted by foreign fuccours. This is a queftion of lefs anxious intereft in Poland; and a husband, perhaps, acts wifely in treating it with philofophic indifference. It is not uncommon to go entirely through a family, and to remark upon each younger member-that was the fruit of fuch an amour; that of such another,and so on; and in this manner the difconfolate husband is fometimes bereft of every laurel he had oftenfibly won in the fields of Hymen. In fuch a ftate of things, it may be readily fuppofed that jealoufy, from its obvious inconvenience, is of rare Occurrence. Yet human nature is ftill human nature, under all its various modifications; and that ugly paffion will fometimes intrude, though it is commonly obliged to retire abashed.

A few young women are often educated in large houses, as companions, perhaps, to the daughters of a family. I have been told, that it is no unusual thing for the patron to cull the firft fruits, in thele inftances, and leave the general harveft to another; that is, a girl thus prematurely womanifed, will be given in marriage to one of his refpectable dependants, whom he will perhaps provide with a farm, or other fituation; and the happy couple are made for life; being alfo admitted ever after, on all occafions, to their master's table.' 324–326.

The

The Polish language, our author is difpofed to think fo much on the decline, that should no political change happen, it is most likely to wear out of ufe, except among the peafants. All the upper claffes, indeed every one above the lower ranks, is master of one or two languages befide his own. The natives, among themselves, as frequently converfe in French as in Polish. The nobles have almost always fome foreign fervants; and even the Polish fervants in their houses know fomething of German. A fociety, it seems, has been founded at Warsaw, fince the partition, for the purpose of preferving the language of the country; but our author affures us little or nothing has been done by this learned body. They diftinguish themselves' (fays he) more by fhowy fpeeches, and particularly by pompous eloges over their deceafed members, than by any memoirs valuable either for their fcientific or literary excellence.'

A confiderable portion of this volume is devoted to the hiftory of ecclefiaftical diffenfions in Poland, and the different political changes which were effected before the final partition. In this fketch we do not find much to praise. It is by no means full or fatisfactory in proportion to its length; and the information from which it is compiled being exceedingly well known to the generality of readers, Mr Burnett fhould have claimed our attention, by digesting it in a more advantageous manner. He has given no new anecdotes relating to the partition, nor indeed any of the ordinary information refpecting that event, which Poles are most in the habit of communicating. The proofs which his narrative brings, however, imperfect though it be, of the evils of religious diffenfions in extinguishing the spirit and energies of a naturally brave and patriotic people, are deferving of attention in the prefent day; and we cannot too much applaud the manly and decided tone in which he makes his application of this leffon to the actual fituation of this country and the fifter kingdom. We fhall close our extracts with the anecdote relating to the Emprefs Catharine, because, we believe, it is little known among her admirers, and places, in a strong light, the bafe and little qualities which deformed her extraordinary character.

She (the princefs Czartoryfka) has rendered herfelf particularly illuftrious by a rivalry with the late Emprefs of Ruffia, who, as fhe was furpaffed in beauty (the moft loved and coveted fource of female power), fet no bounds to her fpite. It seems, that in feveral inftances they interfered in respect of gallants; and one of the inftances is faid to have been the King of Poland-an offence, which her imperial haughtiness could not brook. On the partition of Poland, the Ruffian army had exprefs directions not to fpare the town and palace of Pulawy; and they were accordingly twice pillaged, and almoft deftroyed. The beft rooms. of the palace were perfectly gutted; every article of furniture, pictures

and