CALAMITIES OF POLAND.

No kingdom in Europe has been subjected to so many Calamities of Poland. misfortunes and changes, considering its former greatness, as the Polish monarchy. Most of the European states have retained their ancient limits, for several centuries, without material changes, but Poland has been conquered, dismembered, and plundered. Its ancient constitution has been completely subverted, and its extensive provinces are now annexed to the territories of Russia, Austria, and Prussia. The greatness of the national calamities has excited the sympathy of Christian nations, and its unfortunate fate is generally lamented.

In the sixteenth century, Poland was a greater state than Russia, and was the most powerful of the northern kingdoms of Europe. The Poles, as a nation, are not, however, of very ancient date. Prior to the ninth century, they were split up into numerous tribes, independent of each other, and governed by their respective chieftains. Christianity was introduced in the tenth century, and the earliest records of the people were preserved by the monks. We know but little, with certainty, until the time of Piast, who united the various states, and whose descendants reigned until 1386, when the dynasty of the Jagellons commenced, and continued till 1572. Under the princes of this line, the government was arbitrary and oppressive. War was the great business and amusement of the princes, and success in it brought the highest honors. The kings were, however, weak, cruel, and capricious, ignorant, fierce, and indolent. The records of their reigns are the records of drunkenness, extortion, cruelty, lust, and violence—the common history of all barbarous kings. There were some of the Polish princes who were benignant and merciful, but the great majority of them, like the Merovingian and Carlovingian princes of the Dark Ages, were unfit to reign, were the slaves of superstition, and the tools of designing priests. There is a melancholy gloom hanging over the annals of the Middle Ages, especially in reference to kings. And yet their reigns, though stained by revolting crimes, generally were to be preferred to the anarchy of an interregnum, or the overgrown power of nobles.

The brightest period in the history of Poland was during the reigns of the Jagellon princes, especially when Casimir I. held the sceptre of empire. During his reign, Lithuania, which then comprised Hungary, Bohemia, and Silesia, was added to his kingdom. The university of Cracow was founded, and Poland was the great resort of the Jews, to whom were committed the trade and commerce of the land. But the rigors of the feudal system, and the vast preponderance of the aristocracy, proved unfortunate for the prosperity of the kingdom. What in England was the foundation of constitutional liberty, proved in Poland to be subversive of all order and good government. In England, the representative of the nation was made an instrument in the hands of the king of humbling the great nobility. Absolutism was established upon the ruins of feudalism. But, in Poland, the Diet of the nation controlled the king, and, as the representatives of the nobility alone, perpetuated the worst evils of the feudal system.

When Sigismund II., the last male heir of the house of Jagellon, died, in 1572, the nobles were sufficiently powerful to make the The Crown of Poland Made Elective. crown elective. From this period we date the decline of Poland. The Reformation, so beneficent in its effects, did not spread to this Sclavonic country; and the barbarism of the Middle Ages received no check. On the death of Sigismund, the nobles would not permit the new sovereign to be elected by the Diet, but only by the whole body of the nobility. The plain of Praga was the place selected for the election; and, at the time appointed, such a vast number of nobles arrived, that the plain, of twelve miles in circumference, was scarcely large enough to contain them and their retinues. There never was such a sight seen since the crusaders were marshalled on the field of Chalcedon, for all the nobles were gorgeously apparelled, and decked with ermine, gold, and jewels. The Polish horseman frequently invests half his fortune in his horse and dress. In the centre of the field was the tent of the late king, capable of accommodating eight thousand men. The candidates for the crown were Ernest Archduke of Austria; the Czar of Russia; a Swedish prince, and Henry of Valois, Duke of Anjou, and brother of Charles IX., king of France.

The first candidate was rejected because the house of Austria was odious to the Polish nobles; the second, on account of his arrogance; and the third, because he was not powerful enough to bring advantage to the republic. The choice fell on the Election of Henry, Duke of Anjou. Duke of Anjou; and he, for the title of a king, agreed to the ignominious conditions which the Poles proposed, viz., that he should not attempt to influence the election of his successors, or assume the title of heir of the monarchy, or declare war without the consent of the Diet, or impose taxes of any description, or have power to appoint his ambassadors, or any foreigner to a benefice in the church; that he should convoke the Diet every two years; and that he should not marry without its permission. He also was required to furnish four thousand French troops, in case of war; to apply annually, for the sole benefit of the Polish state, a considerable part of his hereditary revenues; to pay the debts of the crown; and to educate, at his own expense, at Paris or Cracow, one hundred Polish nobles. He had scarcely been crowned when his brother died, and he was called to the throne of France. But he found it difficult to escape from his kingdom, the government of which he found to be burdensome and vexatious. No criminal ever longed to escape from a prison, more than this prince to break the fetters which bound him to his imperious subjects. He resolved to run away; concealed his intentions with great address; gave a great ball at his palace; and in the midst of the festivities, set out with full speed towards Silesia. He was pursued, but reached the territories of the emperor of Germany before he was overtaken. He reached Paris in safety, and was soon after crowned as king of France.

He was succeeded by Stephen, Duke of Transylvania; and he, again, by Sigismund, Prince of Sweden. The two sons of Sigismund, successively, were elected kings of Poland, the last of whom, John II., was embroiled in constant war. It was during his disastrous reign that Sobieski Assists the Emperor Leopold. John Sobieski, with ten thousand Poles, defeated eighty thousand Cossacks, the hereditary enemies of Poland. On the death of Michael, who had succeeded John II., Sobieski was elected king, and he assumed the title of John III. He was a native noble, and was chosen for his military talents and successes. Indeed, Poland needed a strong arm to defend her. Her decline had already commenced, and Sobieski himself could not avert the ruin which impended. For some time, Poland enjoyed cessation from war, and the energies of the monarch were directed to repair the evils which had disgraced his country. But before he could prosecute successfully any useful reforms, the war between the Turks and the eastern powers of Europe broke out, and Vienna was besieged by an overwhelming army of two hundred thousand Mohammedans. The city was bravely defended, but its capture seemed inevitable. The emperor of Germany, Leopold, in his despair, implored the aid of Sobieski. He was invested with the command of the allied armies of Austrians, Bavarians, Saxons, and Poles, amounting to seventy thousand men. With this force he advanced to relieve Vienna. He did not hesitate to attack the vast forces encamped beneath the walls of the Austrian capital, and obtained one of the most signal victories in the history of war. Immense treasures fell into his hands, and Vienna and Christendom were saved.

But the mean-spirited emperor treated his deliverer with arrogance and chilling coldness. No gratitude was exhibited or felt. But the pope sent him the rarest of his gifts—&............