ART. XVI.—Taréas de un Solitario, o nueva Coleccion de Novelas. (Tasks of a Solitary, or a New Collection of Tales.) Madrid, 1829. 12mo.

THE Western Peninsula of Europe appears to have been almost the birth-place of chivalrous romance, as well as of the beautifully simple ballad, historical or legendary, to which, in Spanish, the name of romance is especially given; probably from its having been one of the earliest forms of composition in the language of the country, when termed indifferently the vulgar tongue, and the langue Romane or Romans. Yet such works of fiction, moral, pathetic, or impassioned, as under the name of novel or romance, now delight most parts of Europe, are in Spain almost unknown. What Spanish literature does afford of the kind is little, and that little dull, cold, extravagant, and uninteresting. Under existing circumstances of this nature, we gladly hail a volume, even of the size and description of the one before us, although in any other language with which we are acquainted it could not have commanded an instant's notice. We have perused it with some satisfaction, and trust that its reception will be such as may encourage its author to cultivate and exert talents evidently equal to better things.

This tiny volume contains an allegorical dream and five short stories, concerning which the author says, " If I have sometimes imitated, I have at other times invented, and never have I translated."

From this declaration we draw the conclusion, that the tale of El Cuadro Misterioso, or the Mysterious Picture, being altogether new to us, is original. Of the other four, two are founded upon Shakspeare's Twelfth Night, and Much Ado about Nothing; a third is borrowed from Washington Irving's sleeping hero; and the fourth from an old Italian story, we forget whether of Bandello, or some other Novelliero. All are, however, as the author avers, imitated, not copied or translated; some are transferred to Spanish ground, and all are varied and adapted to his own taste. This is sometimes done happily, as when in his Agravio Satisfecho, or the Expiated Insult, taken from Much Ado about Nothing, he substitutes the great captain of Spanish history, Gonsalvo de Cordova, for Dogbery, as the detector of the plot against the reputation of Hero; but we cannot say that we think all our Solitary's alterations, improvements, or that he, as yet, discovers any peculiar skill in the management or construction of a story. Our impression is, nevertheless, strong that, if he would take the pains, he could write an effective tale. His language is excellent; and, in fact, it has never before been our good fortune to read any thing in Spanish that so clearly and powerfully bore the impress of the spirit of these cultivated and stirring times, as our anonymous author's Tasks, which, by the way, might, we conceive, more appropriately bear the title of Lord Byron's earliest publication, Hours of Idleness.

The introductory Vision is by far the cleverest thing in this tiny

Don Quixote is a satire, or a satirical romance; a title which will include most good Spanish tales. Cervantes's own serious romance, Persiles y Sigiemunda, is unreadable.

volume, and from it we shall take our specimen. The author supposes that during a visit to the Biblioteca Real, or Royal Library, in the new edifice built for its reception, while profoundly meditating upon the contempt professed for Spanish literature by those nations whose writers have most freely plundered its treasures, he lays his head upon a ponderous folio, (not one of those whence the spoilers had drawn their booty we presume,) and falls asleep. He now dreams that he sees numbers of ragged, meagre, miserable looking beings enter the library and seize upon the books, which at their touch are converted into splendid garments. We translate part of the description of subsequent proceedings, both because we think it lively and fanciful, and because we suspect that few of our readers may be aware how much the best French authors are indebted to the contemned literature of Spain.

"Amongst the crowd were a few less shabby in dress and mien than the rest. In one of these, distinguished by his courtly air, polished manners, and harmonious language, I immediately recognized M. Le Sage. This personage accosted Don Vicente Espinel with a fine speech or two, and politely disencumbered him of his cloak. Next admiring his doublet and ruff, he very quietly appropriated those articles likewise; and finally, unable to withstand the attractions of the hat, he set that, with all its graceful feathers, upon his own head. Then, leaving poor Espinel in complete dishabille, he himself appeared so bravely and gallantly equipped, that he looked like a real Spaniard. "At this moment I observed a very solemn gentleman, who, with a theatrical step and great assumption of importance, walked up to Guillen de Castro, and, as though doing him a prodigious favour, snatched the Cid's Tizona* from his side, buckled on the golden spurs presented to the hero by Doña Urraca, and suffered neither helmet, shield or gauntlet to escape him. When thus armed a knight, he retired with so martial an air, that I deemed it had been the very Ruy Diaz de Bivar himself. How was I scandalized when in the spoiler I discovered the celebrated Corneille!

"Shortly afterwards appeared an exquisite, trimmed and perfumed, with the airs of nobility, and some order at his breast. The signs could not deceive, and I knew that this was Florian. He, without wasting time in compliments, laid hands upon P. Gines de Hita, taking from him Boabdil's scymetar, Zoraida's caftan, and Muley's turban. All which prizes he so skilfully arranged upon his own person, that he seemed a legitimate Abencerrage.

"Who could have believed it! Not even the fair sex was safe from the rapacity of these intruders! There wanted not manufacturers of comedies who despoiled Doña Maria de Zayas of her cap and silk skirt, and left her blushing and out of countenance at the affront offered to her."

It can hardly be necessary to explain, that of the authors here named, the Spanish have supplied the French with more than the ground-work of those pieces upon which rests the reputation of the latter. We now take our leave of the Solitary, but we hope not for long; and as we have heard that foreign authors do sometimes take a hint from our critiques, we sincerely wish that these remarks may meet our Spanish novelist's eye, and animate him to that labour and those exertions which alone, we firmly believe, are requisite to insure his achieving something very superior to the present little volume.

The name of one of the Cid's swords.

ART. XVII.—Histoire des Legions Polonaises en Italie, sous le Commandement du General Dombrowski. Par L. Chodzko. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris. 1829.

GENERAL DOMBROWSKI was one of the principal officers who had fought under Kosciuszko, in the last war of Polish independence, against the Russians and Prussians in 1794. He left his country, after the taking of Warsaw, and repaired first to Berlin and afterwards to Paris, where a number of Poles had assembled and held their meetings at the Hotel Diesbach, endeavouring to induce the Directory to some resolution, or at least demonstration, in favour of the reintegration of Poland. The French government, however, having made peace with Prussia, could not openly give umbrage to the latter power, and replied to the Polish refugees by evasive words. Dombrowski having no confidence in these intrigues, bethought himself of another project. In October, 1796, he laid before the Directory a plan for raising a Polish legion in which the refugees might enlist, and which would be swelled by deserters from the Austrian service. By this means the nucleus of a Polish army would be formed to act under the orders of France until an opportunity should be given it to re-conquer Poland. The plan was considered advantageous to the French government, but the French constitution forbade the enlistment of foreign troops in the service of the Republic. To evade this difficulty, the Directory said "they would endeavour to prevail on their good allies, the Cisalpine Republic, which Bonaparte had just formed at Milan, to take the Polish Legion into their pay," thus saddling the Italians with the expense of a corps, which was to serve, however, under the orders of the French generals, and assist in their campaigns. Dombrowski repaired to Milan, and the general-in-chief of the army of Italy, Bonaparte, referred him to the Lombard Congress. A convention was signed in January, 1797, by which the Polish corps was taken into the pay of Lombardy. They were to be commanded in their own language, to have their own national uniform, but to wear the French cockade. Two battalions were formed at first, but the number was soon increased to four, amounting to more than three thousand men.

The first services of these Polish auxiliaries were required against the Republic of Venice, the fall of which reflected but little credit on the French cause. Colonel Liberadzki was killed in entering Verona, where an insurrection had broken out. The Poles fought bravely on every occasion, and they, as well as our author, a Pole himself, never seem to have doubted for a moment the justice of any aggression in which the French were engaged. Themselves the victims of oppression in their own country, they became the unreflecting instruments of a parallel injustice in other lands. Thus moral evil perpetuates itself.

The Polish Legion, after the fall of Venice and the peace of Campoformio, was stationed at Rimini, on the frontiers of the remaining Papal territory, then at peace with the French and Cisalpine republics. On the 22d of December, 1797, a revolt broke out in the neighbouring town of Pesaro: a troop of armed patriots, as they were then called, attacked

* See the article on Oginski's Memoir on Poland, No. VI. of this Review,

the garrison, took possession of the military posts, and arrested the commandant and the Roman governor, Monsignor Saluzzo. The latter sent a message to General Dombrowski, as the officer of a friendly power, requesting his intervention. Dombrowski answered, "that being in the service of a neutral power, he could not order his troops to advance beyond the frontiers of the Roman territory, but that if the governor thought his life in danger, he would, on his personal responsibility, give him the assistance humanity required;" and he sent the second battalion of his Legion, together with a thousand Cisalpine infantry and cavalry, under General Lecchi. The sequel is curious and characteristic of those transactions: we quote M. Chodzko's words.

"The papal troops (not the insurgents) were driven from all their posts; the governor (who had required the general's friendly assistance) and some hun dreds of men were made prisoners of war; and two pieces of cannon, a vast quantity of ammunition and stores fell into the hands of the Italian and Polish troops. A provisional municipality was installed, a civic guard formed, &c. The papal troops seeing this, retreated to Fano and Urbino; but General Lecchi pursued them even there, and found the population (so says our author) tired of the pontifical yoke, and preferring the new government of the conqueror and the strict discipline of the republican troops to the vexations of the papal soldiers. Deputations from the Adriatic provinces came to General Dombrowski, requesting to be occupied by the victorious army. Their wishes were speedily grunted."-vol. ii. pp. 47-48.

It may be remarked that this violation of the Roman territory took place before the tumult at Rome on the 27th of December, in which the French general, Duphot, was killed, and which served afterwards as a pretext for the invasion of the whole Roman territory by the French in February, 1798. It is but justice also to observe that Bonaparte had no share in these transactions, he being then in Egypt.

The Poles marched to Rome with the French army under Berthier. There the pageant of a republic was got up on the Capitol, and Roman consuls appointed. But the country-people were not so easily persuaded: two formidable revolts broke out, one at Frosinone and Ferentino, the other near Terracina. The Poles were sent, with some French troops, to put down the insurrection. Frosinone was burnt, Terracina was pillaged, the insurgents were slaughtered without mercy: "The bayonet of the republicans cleared the earth of them." Such are Mr. Chodzko's words, and he calls the Italian country-people who fought for their homes and their country against the intrusion of insolent foreigners-he calls them in every instance rebels! The Roman, Neapolitan, Tuscan peasantry, rebels against the French! Suwarrow, if we recollect right, in 1794, called the Poles rebels against Russia. We cannot follow our author in the narrative of similar horrors during the whole of that and next year, 1799. From Rome the Poles and French went on to Naples. Similar insurrections or rebellions broke out, and similar means were adopted to quell them. Sessa, Traetto, Castelforte, were taken by storm, the people slaughtered without mercy, the towns burnt, the walls razed. The same scenes took place on the return of the army to the North, in passing through Tuscany, where another insurrection had broken out at Arezzo and Cortona. The Poles being generally in the

advance, were mostly sent against the insurgents. Brave to rashness, stern and uncompromising, they appeared among the terrified Italians as the ministers of republican wrath, and left behind them a fearful remembrance. When in cantonments, however, they preserved a strict discipline, and being Catholics they attended to their religious duties, different in this from their allies, the French.

In June, 1799, we find the Polish Legion engaged at the terrible battle of La Trebbia, against their old enemy Suwarrow, who had, as if by magic, been transported from the banks of the Vistula to those of the Po. The Poles, animated by national hatred, fought like lions during those three days: they lost one half of their numbers. The French were obliged to retire towards Genoa. The Polish Legion was again engaged at the murderous battle of Novi, on the 15th of August, 1799. At the end of that disastrous campaign the Legion, reduced to 800 men, was stationed at Marseilles, where it recruited to fill up its thinned ranks.

The following year (1800) Bonaparte resumed the command, and victory smiled once more on the French. The Polish troops were not present at Marengo, but they fought against the Austrians at Peschiera and Legnago. After the conclusion of the armistice which led to the peace of Lunéville in 1801, the two Polish Legions, that of the Danube and that of Italy, were assembled in the latter country, forming altogether a body of nearly 15,000 men. The greater part of them was afterwards embarked at Leghorn and Genoa under the command of Jablonowski, and sent to St. Domingo, where they almost all perished in that disastrous expedition! Of those who remained in Italy, some entered the service of the Italian Republic, and some that of Naples, after the second invasion of that kingdom by the French. "Such, after five years hard fighting in the service of France, were the fate and the reward of the Polish Legions."-vol. ii. p. 323.

Dombrowski remained in Italy. He had never during his foreign campaigns lost sight of the prospects of his native country. He was continually making plans, more sanguine than practicable, for bringing about the re-establishment of Poland; but his schemes, on being submitted to cool-headed statesmen, appeared shorn of all their brilliant colouring, and were rejected. The first project of Dombrowski was laid before the cabinet of Berlin in March, 1796. In it he proposed to begin the revolution in Austrian Poland; that Prussia should march her troops into those provinces under the pretence of maintaining order, drive the Russians beyond the Dniester, and lastly establish a Prussian prince on the constitutional throne of Poland.

Dombrowski's second plan was still more hazardous and romantic. He proposed, in 1797, to march with his Legion from the Venetian states into Austrian Croatia, deceive the Austrian troops by a feint, then throw himself into the Turkish territory, and after crossing Servia, enter Bukowina and Gallitzia, there to stir up insurrection. The French government, it was observed, would not be compromised by this movement, in which it could always deny having taken any part.”—vol. ii. p. 327, et seqq. The Directory approved of the plan, and sent it to Bonaparte, but that general had just signed the preliminaries of Leoben with