AMONG the pleasant abodes which, during the happier days of Poland, diversified the suburbs of Warsaw, was one which always attracted the attention of the traveller. It was less distinguished by splendour than by that combination of elegance with simplicity, not common in a country where the palace and the straw-roofed cottage, standing side by side, were wont to contrast the extremes of opulence and poverty. Situated on a gentle eminence, it was environed by shades, and curtained with shrubbery, as if modestly seeking to hide its own elevation. A dark forest in the background defined the outline of its white turrets in graceful beauty, while mingling with the sighing sound of its branches, swayed by the winds, came the murmurs of the Vistula, disposing the mind to musing and pensive thought.

This sweetly rural retreat was the residence of John Radzivil, a descendant from the ancient nobility of Poland. Nurtured in the love of liberty, there was ever upon his lofty brow a painful consciousness of the subjugation of his country. Courting retirement, he turned his attention to such pursuits as could not rouse the jealousy of despotism, though his disposition was rather to have braved the storm than to cower beneath it. The dismemberment of his native realm, her loss of a seat among the nations, and the oppressive dynasty of Russia, darkly occupied his solitary meditations.

But in his own home was a peaceful spirit, ever suggesting brighter hopes, and striving to awaken his smiles. Ulrica, the gentle and beautiful one, with whom a union of ten years had left his love unimpaired, employed the whole force of her influence to win him from melancholy themes. Her acquaintance with historic lore, and her native sympathies, led her feelingly to deplore the immolation of her country. But the spirit of piety which had taken possession of her soul, taught her to deprecate every vengeful and hostile purpose, and to view the voluntary shedding of blood not

only as an evil to be dreaded, but as a sin to be shunned. Capable of appreciating the higher and bolder energies, her happiness was embosomed in domestic duties and affections, and she sought to inspire all her household with that love of peace which preserves the fountains of bliss untroubled. It was her delight to lull her infant with such low and quiet music, that sleep would hang long suspended upon the half-closed lids, as if herself a listener. She loved to instruct her daughter in those accomplishments that render home delightful, and by the influence of a sweet and subduing smile, to recal her, if her young spirit wandered or was weary. But, most of all, she loved to cheer his despondence whose heart reposed its confidence on hers; and when it shrank from those thorns and brambles with which the curse of Adam had strewn the earth, to restore to it, in its own sanctuary, some image of forfeit Eden.

Yet this bower of bliss was not free from.

the intrusion of care. Ulrica felt deep anxiety for her little son, in whom she could not but perceive the incipient tastes of a warrior. The piercing eye and raven locks which he inherited from his father, gave to the exceeding beauty of his childhood a lofty expression, which no beholder could witness without repeating the gaze of admiration. His mother, discerning the structure of his mind in infancy, laboured continually to stamp upon its waxen tablet the impress of peace. Even then the ground seemed pre-occupied. Every leaf of olive that she cherished was plucked by some invisible hand. Often, when she flattered herself that the warbled melody of some sacred lay had reached and won his soul, he would suddenly raise his head from her bosom, and say :

"Sing me the battle-song of Sobieski, when he rushed upon the Turk. It is far finer music."

Sometimes, when she narrated, from the Blessed Volume, the lives of the men of peace, of the apostles who went forth, bear

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ing the precious Gospel, and of Heaven's hymn of peace, sung by angels to the watching shepherds, when the Redeemer of sinners was born, he would exclaim:"Tell me now of him who slew the Egyptian, when he saw him mocking his people; and of the stripling who beheaded the giant; and of that glorious warrior who bade the sun and the moon to stand still in their courses, that he might have light, and a long day, to destroy his enemies!"

The oppressive government of the Grand Duke Constantine became every day more intolerable. It often assumed the forms of wanton cruelty. Surrounded by his Russian minions, he took delight in humbling the nobility of Poland, and subjecting them to causeless penalties and offensive vassalage. In addition to these brutal abuses of power, a system of espionnage was established in Warsaw, so strict, that home was no sanctuary. It extended even to the schools. He was not ashamed to employ emissaries and reporters among infants. He desired to crush, in the bud, every indication of the love of liberty. Even the enthusiasm that lingered around the fallen glory of Poland was visited as a crime; and History hid her annal from the eye of Despotism. A boy had inscribed on his seat in school the date of some event distinguished in the record of his country. This circumstance was deemed of sufficient importance to be transmitted to Constantine, who sentenced him to be torn from his parents, and placed for life in the ranks of the soldiers, and to be held incapable of advancement. The unhappy mother sought long and vainly for an audience. And, when he was about to enter his carriage, she threw herself at his feet, imploring, in the most piercing accents, mitigation of the doom of her miserable child. Provoked at her mediation and perseverance, he spurned her with his foot, and deigning no reply, ascended his carriage. It is not suprising that these arbitrary deeds should affect with peculiar sympathy the mother of young Radzivil. She knew the unconquerable boldness of the boy, and her nights were sleepless with dread, lest he, too, should be marked as a victim for the tyrant. She communicated her fears to her husband.

"Ulrica," he gravely replied, "the current of the boy's soul is deep and noble beyond his years. The young eaglet can

not be restrained by the plaintive moan of the dove."

But Ulrica daily counselled her son. She strove to press into his soul the precepts of that religion which forbids retaliation.. She selected from history the examples of those princes and statesmen whose pacific policy promoted the prosperity of their realms, and the happiness of their people. She simplified for him the most exquisite passages of those ancient philosophers who extol the excellence of patient virtue and serene contemplation. She exerted all of woman's eloquence and a mother's love, to make his young soul a listener and a convert.

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'Mother, when I was at Cracow with my father, I visited in the cathedral the tombs of our ancient heroes. I found where Sobieski rests. But I stood longest by the tomb of Kosciusko. The light faded, and darkness began to settle upon the lofty and solemn arches, while I stood there. Then methought a voice came forth from these ashes and talked with me of his glory, of his sufferings, and of the Russian prisons where he so long pined. And then it seemed as if he himself stood before me, that brave old man, covered with scars, and with the tears of Poland. And ere I was aware, I said, I will love Kosciusko and hate Russia for ever."

Ulrica gazed silently upon the boy. She had never seen anything so beautiful as that lofty and pure brow, inspired with emotions that defy utterance. His full eye cast forth a flood of living lustre, and his graceful form rose higher as he ceased to speak. Not Hannibal, when, in the presence of Hamilcar, he sealed the vow of eternal hatred to Rome, could have evinced more strongly how the soul may lift up the features of childhood with a commanding and terrible beauty. The mother wondered at the strange awe that stole over her. She almost trembled to enter the sanctuary of that mind, lest she might displace imagery that Heaven had consecrated, or lay her hand, unwittingly, upon the very ark of God! For a moment she thought, "What if this being, so mighty even in his simple elements, should be the decreed deliverer of wretched Poland!"

It was but a moment that this enthusiasm prevailed. She felt that it was the spirit of the warrior, whose lineaments she had been

thus enforced to admire; a flame, whose essence was destruction. The boy saw the tear glittering in her eye, and hastened to throw himself upon her neck.

"Mother, I will no longer sing the songs of Sobieski, nor speak to my companions of Pulaski, or Kosciusko, since it gives you pain. But when I see the proud Russian soldiers parading in the squares at Warsaw, and Constantine lauding it over our people, can I help my heart from rising up, and the blood from feeling hot in my forehead?"

The features of the Russian dynasty continued to gather harshness and asperity. The Grand Duke became daily more odious to the people whom he ruled. Conscious of unpopularity, and partaking of that distrust which ever haunts tyrany, he retired from the royal palace to one in the vicinity of Warsaw, where he might be under the immediate protection of his own troops. It was no satisfaction to the Radzivil family that the new abode of Constantine was in their own immediate neighbourhood. Still trusting to find safety in seclusion, they devoted themselves to the nurture of their children, and to the varieties of rural pursuits.

Autumn was now deepening to its close. The voice of the Vistula, swollen by rains, became more audible, hoarsely chafing against its banks. Nature, at the approach of her dreariest season, disrobes of their gaiety her inanimate offspring, and seems also to pour heaviness into the hearts of the animal creation. The elk, roaming with his branching horns through the forest, bore upon his aspect an expression of deeper melancholy. The titmouse, whose pendulous nest studded the branches, forgetting its irascible temper, and disappointed in its supply of aquatic insects, gathered with drooping wing around the peasant's cottages, in quest of other food. The bobac prepared a soft lining for its subterranean cell, and gathered its gregarious community for the long sequestration of winter. But where shall the human race find refuge from the tempest of strife and oppression? Earth hath no recess where "man's in humanity to man' may not penetrate.

It was near the close of one of the shortening and gloomy days, that Ulrica became alarmed at the absence of her son. He had prolonged his usual walk with his little sister, about his father's grounds,

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and she had returned without him. As this was of frequent occurrence, it would scarcely have excited observation, but for the heightened state of maternal solicitude. The bold bearing of the boy, and his denunciations of tyranny, had signalized him among his companions, and induced his parents to withdraw him from the public school. They had also deemed it prudent, since the royal residence had been placed in their vicinity, to interdict his leaving their own domain without an attendant.

Now twilight darkened, and he returned not. The earnest search of the whole household was in vain. Little Ulrica watched and listened for his footsteps till the curtains were drawn and the lamps lighted, and then retired to her bed to weep. All the machinery that the agonized affection of his parents could command, was put into requisition; yet the most persevering efforts could obtain no tidings, save that a child had been seen hurried towards the palace by two Russian soldiers, and apparently resisting their purpose. The whole influence of an ancient and noble family was made to bear upon the recovery of this beloved child, only to reveal its utter inefficacy. Inquiry, reward, and menace, were alike powerless. The system of the despot was a sealed book.

"I will, myself, go to the duke," said Ulrica to her husband. "God has given him a human heart. Who can say but it may, sometimes, be vulnerable to compassion?"

John Radzivil felt that such an appea would be hopeless. Yet, as a drowning man rejects not the straw floating on the element that destroys him, he forebore to dissuade her from the enterprise.

The next morning the suffering mother sought the palace of Constantine. She went under the protection of Count Turno, a Polish nobleman, who had for years maintained a degree of ascendancy over the mind of the duke, and was sometimes enabled to soften the violence of his measures. By a singular combination of talent, and an accurate knowledge of the hidden springs of action, he had succeeded in gaining the confidence of the tyrant, without sacrificing either integrity or honour. But consummate prudence was requisite to maintain a post so hazardous. On the present occasion, he dared venture no more than to introduc