hardly allowing me to answer the questions he pur, Who I was? What were my family? What I was? What I intended doing? Where I was going? What brought me to Warsaw? and a variety of other questions of the same bearing. I answered as quickly and shortly as I could, consistent with due respect; but he did not give me time to stand upon petty cere monies, or even to make those statements which had been the object of my visit; for, having finished his category without affording me the slightest opening to commence an independant sentence, he strode off to examine the trowser-straps, buttons, mustachios, and general equipment of the recruits at the back of the room. The inspection concluded, and a few orders given to the officers in attendance, we were dismissed without further parley; and, as I accompanied Sass back in his carriage, I said confidently enough that I presumed there would be no further delay about my passport; but the meaning and silent smile which crossed his lips, although I did not interpret it in its true sense, was a sinister enough augury of what I might expect. Yes-day passed after day, and weeks enlarged themselves into months betore the passport I had so long and vainly expected was placed in my hands. It was only afterwards that I was made aware that every passport passed under the eyes of the Grand Duke himself, and that every foreigner who might be merely journeying through Warsaw was either required by command, or induced under some specious pretext, to present himself to his Imperial Highness; and he himself, taking the office of political inquisitor into his own hands, catachized the new comer as to his life, habits, education, and intentions; and should he be unfortunate enough to please, he was likely, bon gré mal gré, and almost without being aware, to find himself tricked out one fine morning in all the trappings, lacings, and paddings of a Russian uniform. Nor was this all; for once encased in this dress, adieu to home, country, and friends for the best and most active portion of his natural life. If, too, the unfortunate stranger should have been suspected of entertaining liberal opinions, (it was enough that he should be supposed to have come direct from France) he immediately became an object of the secret attentions of the Grand Duke's government: every step was dodged; every motion watched, and every word or opinion uttered by the supposed delinquent carefully registered and reported. Indeed the system of espionage in Warsaw was carried to an extent perfectly wondertul-perfectly diabolical-at the expense too of every natural and social tie: each class, each grade, each department of the State had its overseeing spies; some of whom I believe were the authorised agents of the Russian government, but by far the greater proportion, and particularly that department of the system to which I and persons in my situation became amenable, was an especial and private freak of the Grand Duke's, perfectly unauthorised by the Emperor, unwarranted by the government, and unknown to, or at least unacknowledged by the public. In short, it was a little stretch of his prerogative, if that term could be applied to the powers of one, who, simply commander of the forces in Warsaw, had, in defiance of the constitution, the laws, and the oath of the Emperor, arrogated to himself-in fact, usurped-the whole of the executive power. The constitution which was guaranteed to Poland as an independant kingdom declared, that the viceroyalty should be ever vested in a Polish nobleman of the imperial appointment; but this, like the great majority of the clauses in that unfortunate charter, soon became a neglected theory. Since the decease of the first and last vice. roy, who died in 1825, the office has been in abeyance, tured at a congress and guaranteed at convenience by friendly powers. But I turn willingly from so miser. able a picture of careless legislation and neglect on the one side, and broken faith on the other, which have made a brave people their victims. By degrees, and by comparing the anecdotes which now and then flitted in whispers from mouth to mouth with the singular circumstances in which I was placed, it became sufficiently evident to me that my detention in Warsaw was owing, not to any real or supposed irregularity in my passport, but to some designing trickery or connivance on the part of Constantine; for many posts had arrived which might have brought back the expected document, and still the answer to my daily inquiries at the post-office was in the negative. At last the suspicions which I already entertained of some underhand dealing were confirmed, by my being made aware that every private letter which passed through the post-office was opened and read, and many detained or destroyed, under the especial orders, and sometimes the personal interference, of the Grand Duke; but still his repeated and marked attentions to me, the many private interviews with which he honoured me, and the kindness with which he found me a home when I stood most in need of it, (for Sass, at his request, took me into his house) tended rather to lull, when they ought, perhaps, to have awakened, any doubts I might have entertained as to his ultimate intentions towards me. It must be recollected too that, although I was a witness of much of his bearish roughness and intemperance in private, yet no instances of the wanton, and, I may almost say, diabolical spirit with which his public character was so deeply seared, had been brought under my immediate observations; so that it is not wonderful that I forgot, or to speak more correctly, hardly dreamt, that I was little better than a prisoner on parole in Warsaw.-But, in spite of his kindness, I feared as well as mistrusted him:-dreading his violence of temper and suspecting his motives, I was never at ease in his pre sence, and always on thorns lest some ill-considered phrase or doubtful expression should rouse the angry passions of the slumbering bear; indeed, there were times when I almost trembled before him. Three or four times a week I received commands to attend his levée, and not unfrequently invitations to breakfast,--a meal which he commonly took about eleven o'clock in the day. On these occasions he seemed to take considerable pleasure in all I could tell him of England and its modes and customs-its army, its capital, and its domestic and commercial resources. If on some of these subjects I confessed my ignorance, he would eye me with a doubting and suspicious glance, urge me again and again on the same point, as if he thought I was unwilling to ex plain, or expressly reserved that of which I regret I was utterly ignorant; or he would dash up in a towering passion, break into some intemperate expression, and declare that I ought to be ashamed of myself not to be acquainted with statistics, which even foreigners knew well. In these fierce moods, in these sudden and unforeseen accesses of passion, he was with ditculty pacified a task upon which I never dared venture--I could only look on and listen in silence; but if his elegant and amiable princess was present, as was not unfrequently the case, her graceful tenderness and endearments calmed down the storm: she petted himm like a froward child, and with a doubting pause or a half-muttered growl his good-humour returned. This charming and accomplished creature was his wife, by one of those left-handed marriages so common and well understood among the German princes; and it was always a matter of surprise to me by what strange the duties became a nutility, the place was intention- freak of destiny a being so mild and gentle in manner, ally lett unfilled, and Constantine became the Diony- so graceful, so tender and amiable in all the acts and sius of Poland. So much for constitutions manufac-movements of her life, could have been linked to such a monster; and what seems stranger still, she loved him, and thence, perhaps, the secret of her influence. I have seen him often playing with her long ringlets, or fondling in his great paw the prettiest and whitest hand in the world, or kissing his hand to her at a window with an air that actually approached to tenderness. She, indeed, was the only person who possessed any real influence over his mind, and her gentle ways could sooth the wild beast in his angriest moods; she would follow him as he stamped about the room: she expostulated, she wheedled, she caressed, she would try with a tear in her eye to make him laugh; and it would seem that, almost in spite of himself, the smile she sought so anxiously came at her bidding; he would look into her eyes, kiss her little hand, and seat himself again without another allusion to the cause of the explosion. He seemed almost to encourage her interference, and he played with her as a child would with a doll, but she was a plaything with which he never quarrelled. He seemed proud too of her mental acquirements, and he delighted in the display of her accomplishments. Indeed, I at one time attributed it as a principal cause why I was so often an invited guest at the Belvidere, that it afforded her the opportunity of speaking English,--an accomplishment in which she excelled: she possessed considerable fluency, and that least possible smack of a foreign accent which could not be otherwise than pleasing on the lips of a pretty woman. Constantine took great pleasure in setting us talking in that language,-rubbed his hands, and listened with evident gratification as she prattled away in a tongue which he did not understand, and continued repeatedly to express his pleasure and satisfaction. His tenderness for this mild and gentle being was at least a redeeming point in his character, and his at. tachment was repaid on her part by the most devoted and entire affection. Poor thing! his death broke the slight cord which attached her to life;-whether it was that her whole soul, her existence was wrapped up in him who had raised her from comparative obscurity al. most to a throne, or whether it was that she missed the being who, however harsh and cruel to others, was always after his fashion kind to her, whom she had been so long accustomed to cajole, to fondle, to guide, to moderate, -the link was severed-her gentle heart broke under the shock, and, after hardly two months of a painful widowhood, she sunk into the grave which had received her husband. saw. Meanwhile the term of my acquaintance with this remarkable person, if acquaintance it could be called, between an imperial prince and an unknown foreigner, was fast drawing to a close; and a single act of mine, as I have since had reason to believe, decided Constantine to open to me at last the barriers of WarAt an audience to which I had been expressly summoned, he asked me, without periphrases, or the slightest attempt to lead the conversation to the desir ed point, whether I would enter the Russian service; and as I almost feared that my immediate and unhesitating refusal would have thrown him again into one of his intemperate fits, I was agreeably enough surprised that, instead of the burst of passion I had anticipated, he only repeated the question in his usual impatient manner, concluding the query with an impa. tient "Yes or no?" I repeated my decisive refusal, and with a dissatisfied grunt he turned from me and left the saloon-a signal of course for me to leave the Belvidere. My memory does not exactly satisfy me whether this was the last interview with which I was honoured; indeed, one other audience I must have had, though simply to take leave; but of this I am sure, that in no way was this subject ever renewed, or even alluded to by the Grand Duke; he seemed to have dismissed it from his mind altogether; and if the object of obtaining a recruit to his service had ever been one of the causes of my detention, it appears sin gular enough that neither in person nor by means of those who through torce and fraud were ever ready to do his bidding, should he have made another effort to attain the point which my conjecture has attributed to him. Be that as it may, a short time only had elapsed after the occurrence I have mentioned, when, on my inquiry as usual at the post-office for letters from Vienna, the packet containing the long-expected passport was handed to me. Young S--, the son of the Prince's favourite, had happened to accompany me on this er. rand; and as we discovered that the Viennese postmark differed materially in date from that of the delivery, he, evidently not in the secret, questioned the of ficial closely on this remarkable discrepancy; and only to his reiterated questions, and ultimately a threat of complaint to the Grand Duke, was it reluctantly admitted that the packet on its arrival had been detained from me by the express command of his Imperial Highness, and had been forwarded to the Belvidere, where it had remained nearly three weeks! I leave to those, who may have had better opportunities than I of knowing Constantine's character, the task of ex. explaining this infamous proceeding. I leave to his admirers, if such exist, the office of finding apologies for such an unprecented disregard of the private relations of life, for such a flagrant breach of the social rights of individuals; not that mine was a singular instance, for I have assured reasons to believe that such was the every-day practice in the post-office of Warsaw. But I had no time then for reflection, still less for remonstrance, for I was too glad and anxious to use my recovered liberty; and I hastened to fly from the deadly influence of a government where open vio. lence was abetted by secret treachery, where tyranny based its throne upon fraud and espionage, where usurpations mocked at the guarantees of the whole of Europe. For Constantine himself, I was never able to over. come the disgust with which his character inspired me; for although, as I have said, no striking instances of his violent and wanton cruelty were obtruded upon my observation, evidences there were enough in every corner of the capital ot his crushing oppression; and anecdotes were too rife and too well authenticated not to produce their impression upon my mind. It were useless to relate how he compelled an unfortunate of ficer of Dragoons to leap again and again over a py. ramid of bayonets until both horse and man sunk dead with the last effort; or how he shot a Saxon postillion dead on the spot, with the most Irish intention of inducing him to drive faster: these with his dia. bolical treatment of a respectable female who was so unfortunate as to attract his attention, and his systematic persecution of his first wife, with a hundred others, were true tales, which, although only whispered in secret and under the breath in Warsaw, have long since been current through the rest of the Continent. His cowardice, too, -for that vice must always form an integral part of such a character as his,--was sufficiently evinced not only by the low and shameful practices by which he so long guarded his usurped dominion, but by his last exertion of authority in Warsaw. He left his favourite generals and aides-decamp-those whose attachment to his person gave them at least some claims upon his consideration-to be cut down by an infuriated and successful mob; while he, coward like, fled the palace through a se cret passage from his bed-chamber. The lives of his brave and devoted adherents had gained him time to place his person in safety. Among the first fell Sass. Poor Sass! though circumstance had placed him in a most unenviable position, his heart was in the right place: at least he deserved a better fate than to fling away his life for a tyrant. The master's hour was not 1 ELEGIAC STANZAS-STOP MY PAPER. yet come: and it was only in the effort to re-acquire by the Russian bayonet what he had lost by his own tyranny and oppression, that perhaps a violent, at least a painful and unregarded death closed a life of violence;--and the character of Constantine now belongs to the history of the Polish Revolution. We shall say of him, that though he must have possessed some good points in private, (else where could have originated the attachment of his second wife and the undoubted devotion of his favourites?) yet these qualities were forgotten and overborne in that deadly and all-pervading stain, that wantonness of spirit, which attaining no end of government and adding nothing to his power, can only be termed a sensual appetite for cruelty. Posterity will mark him as the Dionysius, or rather the Nero, of Modern Europe. For the Poles themselves, an utter disregard of their civil rights and constitutional privileges, a long series of unequalled oppressions, and a wanton trifling with the dearest feelings of human nature, forced them into a last though vain effort for freedom. Smarting with their injuries, heart-seared with a sense of their wrongs, in despite of tyranny and in hopelessness of confederacy, the Poles waged their existence against success, and rushed into revolt. "These were the reasons why the people rose." Who of us can forget how nearly that essay was successful? how boldly and how long the unequal struggle was maintained? Indeed, but for the treachery of some and the timidity of others among the nations of Europe, Poland might now have been numbered among her independant kingdoms. Alas! Le bon jour ne reviendra jamais. ELEGIAC STANZAS On the Death of Sarah M. S*****. As our bright summer-birds go back So hast thou gone! thy pathway brief To dim its green, luxuriant bowers, - 'Tis sad, when our sweet birds away, Flit from the colder breezes near; So, thoughts of thee, should scarce be grief, A resting-place, where sin is not;- Scarce sullied from the hand divine, From the New York Mirror. "STOP MY PAPER."-Of all the silly, shortsighted, ridiculous American phrases this, as it is frequently used, is the most idle and unmeaning. We are called an infant nation, and truly we often individually conduct ourselves like children. We have a certain class of subscribers who take the Mirror and profess to like its contents till, by-and-by, an opinion meets their view with which they do not agree. What do they, then, in their sagacity. Turn to their nearest companion with a passing comment upon the error they think they have detected? or direct a brief communication to the editor, begging to dissent therefrom in the same pages where the article which has displeased them has appeared? No. Get into a passion, and, for all we know, stamp and swear, and instantly, before the foam has time to cool on their lip, write a letter, commencing with "stop my paper!" If we say rents are exorbitantly high and landlords should be too generous to take advantage of an accidental circumstance-round comes a broad hat and gold-headed cane, with "Sir, stop my paper!"-Does an actor receive a bit of advice? The green room is too hot to hold him till relieved by those revengeful words "stop my paper!" If we ever praise one, some envious rival "We dare not hope to navigate the ocean with steals gloomily in-with-"sir, if you please, stop my paper!" steamboats, but our paper is "stopped" by a ship-captain. Our doctor nearly let us die the other day because a correspondent had praised an enemy of "our college," and we expect a "fieri facias" in the office presently, on account of something which we understood somebody had said against some law suit in, we do not remember what court. But all these affairs were out-done the other day by the following: We were sitting in our elbow-chair ruminating on "Monsieur!" he stopped again to take breath. ment about his head. "Really, my friend," said we, smiling, for he was not an object to be frightened about, "when you have perfectly finished amusing yourself with that weapon, we should like to be the master of our own leisure." "No, sair: I have come to horsewhip you wis dis cowhide?" We took a pistol from a drawer, cocked it, and aimed it at his head. "Pardon, sair;" said the Frenchmen, "I will first give you some explanation. Monsieur, if you have write dis article?" We looked it over and acknowledged ourself the author. It was a few lines referring to the great improvements in rail-roads, and intimating that this mode of travelling would one day supersede every other. "You have write dat in your papair?" "Yes, sir." C. "Well, den, sair-'stop you dem papair.' I have live quarante-neuf ans. I have devote all my life to ride de ballom!-c'est ma grande passion. Bien, Monsieur! I shall look to find every one wis his littel balloon-to ride horseback in de air-to go round de world in one summair, and make me rich like Monsieur Astair, wis de big hotel. Well, Monsieur, now you put piece in your dem papair to say dat de rail-road, monsieur, de littel rail road, supersede-voila supersed. Dat is what you say-supersede every thing else. Monsieur, begar I have de honnair to inform you dat de rail road nevair supersede be balloon-and also, monsieur-ventre-bleu! 'stop you dem papair!" " "It has been said, that man possesses three natures; a vegetable one, which is content merely to exist; an animal one, which destroys; and an intellectual one, which creates." The animal excels the vegetable nature; the intellectual one soars above both, and this it is the peculiar providence of man to cultivate and improve. i well. It tells of pleasure past away, Had anger chid, or doubt mislead, |