Thaddeus of Warsaw

by Jane Porter

But though dismembered and thrown out from the "map of nations" by the combination of usurping ambition and broken faith, and no longer to be regarded as one in its "proud cordon," Poland retained within herself (as has been well observed by a contemporary writer) "a mode of existence unknown till then in the history of the world—a domestic national vitality." Unknown, we may venture to say, except in one extraordinary yet easily and reverentially understood instance. We mean the sense of an integral national being, ever- living in the bosoms of the people of Israel, throughout all their different dispersions and captivities. And, perhaps, with respect to this principle of a moral, political, and filial life, still drawing its aliment from the inhumed heart of their mother-country, who, to them, "is not dead but sleepeth!" may be explained, in some degree, in reference to the above remark on the existing and individual feeling amongst the wanderers of Poland, by considering some of the best effects, latent in their "working together for good," in the deep experience of her ancient variously-constituted modes of civil government.

Under that of her early monarchs, the Piasts and their senate, she sat beneath an almost patriarchal sceptre, they being native and truly parental princes. John Sobieski was one of this description by descent and just rule. Under the Jagellon dynasty, also sprung from the soil, she held a yet more generalizing constitutional code, after which she gradually adopted certain republican forms, with an elective king—a strange contradiction in the asserted object, a sound system for political freedom, but which, in fact, contained the whole alchemy of a nation's "anarchical life," and ultimately produced the entire destruction of the state. From the established date of the elective monarchy, the kingdom became an arena for every species of ambitious rivalry, and its sure consequences, the interference of foreign influences; and hence rapidly advanced the decline of the true independent spirit of the land, to stand in her laws, and in her own political strength; her own impartial laws, the palladium of the people and a native king the parental guardian of their just administration. But, in sad process of time, "strangers of Rome, of Gaul, and of other nations," in whose veins not a drop of Sclavonian blood flowed, found means to successively seat themselves on the throne of the Piasts, the Jagellons, and the Sobieskis, of ancient Sarmatia; and the revered fabric fell, as by an earthquake, to be registered no more amongst the kingdoms of the world.

THE EARLY EDUCATION OF KOSCIUSKO AND HIS COMPATRIOTS, WITH ITS SUBSEQUENT EFFECTS ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THEIR LIVES.

Though their country appeared thus lost to them, they felt its kingdom still in their minds—in the bosom of memory, in the consciousness of an ancestry of bravery and of virtue; and though the soil had passed away from the feet of those whose ancestors of "sword or share" had trod it as sons and owners, and it now holds no place for them but their fathers' graves, yet the root is deep in such planting, and the tree, though invisible to the world, is seen and nourished in the depths of their hearts by the dews of heaven.

The pages of universal history, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, when opened with the conviction that He who made the world governs it also, will best explain the why of these changes in the destiny of nations; and within half of the latter part of the last century, and the nearly half of the present, awful have been the pages to be read. Hence we may understand the vital influence of the objects of education with regard to the principles inculcated, whether with relation to individual interest or to the generalized consideration of a people as a commonwealth or a kingdom. A kingdom and a commonwealth may be considered the same thing, when the power of both people and king are limited by just laws, established by the long exercised wisdom of the nation, holding the whole powers of the state in equilibrium; and in this sense, meaning "a royal commonwealth," comprising, as in England, "kings, lords, and commons," it is generally believed is intended to be understood the term, "The republic of Poland, with its king."

The Polish nation, however, under all their dominions of government, usually partook something of the policies and manners of the then existing times. Yet they were always distinguished by a particular chivalry of character, a brave freedom from all foreign and domestic vassalage, and a generous disposition to respect and to assist the neighboring nations to maintain the same independence they themselves enjoyed. Though actual schools, or colleges, or written lore, might not originally have had much to do with it, the continued practice of old, well-formed customs held them in "the ways their fathers walked in" and they found them those of "pleasantness" and true honor. But the time came when literary dictation was to take the place of oral tradition, and of habitual imitative reverence of the past. Schools and colleges were instituted, teaching for doctrines the prevailing sentiments of the endowers, or of the instructors employed. During the reigns of the later sovereigns of the Jagellon dynasty, Sigismund I. and II., and that of their predecessor, John Sobieski, the principles of these seminaries might be considered sound. But soon after the death of the last-named monarch, when the latent mischief contained in the Utopian idea of the perfection of an always elective monarchy began to shake the stability of even the monarchy itself, certain of the public teachers evinced correspondent signs of this destructive species of freemasonry; and about the same period the Voltaire venom of infidelity against all the laws of God and man being poured throughout the whole civilized world, the general effect had so banefully reached the seats of national instruction in Poland, that several of the most venerated personages, whose names have already been, commemorated in the preceding biographical story, congregated together to stem, by a counteracting current, the torrent where they saw it likely to overflow; to sap up its introduced sources, by obtaining the abolition of some of the most subtle and dangerous of the scholastic institutions, and the establishment of others in their room, on the sound foundation of moral and religious polity between men and nations.

The sole remaining princely descendants of the three just referred to, true patriot-monarchs, were the earliest awakened to resist the spirit of evil spreading amongst all classes in the nation. The Czartoryski and the Zamoyski race, both of the Jagellon line, and near kinsmen to the then newly raised monarch to the Polish throne, Stanislaus Poniatowski, appeared like twin stars over the darkened field, and the whole aspect of the country seemed speedily changed. A contemporary writer bears record that one hundred and twenty-seven provincial colleges were founded, perfected, and supported by them and their patriotic colleagues; while the University of Vilna was judiciously and munificently organized by its prince palatine, Adam Czartoryski himself, and a statute drawn up which declared it "an open high-school from the supreme board of public education for all the Polish provinces." Herein was every science exalting to the faculties of man, and conducive to his sacred aspirations, seriously and diligently inculcated; and every principle of morality and religion, purifying to his mixed nature, and therefore calculated to establish him in the answering conduct, truth, justice, and loyal obedience to the hereditary revered laws of the nation, equally instilled, qualifying him to uphold them, and to defend their freedom from all offensive operations at home or abroad, intended to subvert the purity of their code or the integrity of their administration. Such was the import of the implied vow on entering the university.

Amongst the gallant youths brought up in such a school of public virtue was Thaddeus Kosciusko and the young Timotheus Niemcivitz, his friend from youth to age. Kosciusko, as has already been said, was of noble parentage; and to be the son of a Polish nobleman was to be born a soldier, and its practical education, with sabre and lance, his daily pastime. But military studies were included in these various colleges, and the friends soon became as mutually expert in arms as they ever after continued severally distinguished in the fields of their country with sword or lyre. Besides, neither of the young cavaliers passed quite away from their alma mater without having each received the completing accolade of "true knighthood" by the stroke of "fealty to honor!" from the inaugurating sunbeam of some lovely woman's eye. Such befell the youthful Kosciusko, one bright evening, in a large and splendid circle of "the beautiful and brave" at Vilna; and it never lessened its full rays in his chivalric heart, from that hour devoted to the angel-like unknown who had shed them on him, and who had seemed to doubly consecrate the ardors of his soul to his country—her country—the country of all he loved and honored upon earth. How he wrought out this silent vow is a story of deep interest—equally faithful to his patriotic loyalty and to his ever-cherished love; and in some subsequent reminiscences of the hero, should the writer live to touch a Polish theme again, they may be related with additional honor to his memory.

Brief was the time after the preceding sealing scene of the young Kosciusko for his military vocation took place, before himself and his friend Niemcivitz—who had also received his "anointing spell," which he gayly declared came by more bright eyes than he would dare whisper to their possessors—made a joint arrangement to quit the study of arms, though thus cheered on by the Muses and the Graces, and at once enter the exercise in some actual field of rugged war. The newly-opened dispute between Great Britain and her colonies in North America seemed calculated for their honorable practice. Consulting some of their most respected friends, they speedily found means to cross the seas, and shared the first great campaign under Washington. The issue of that campaign, and those which followed it, need not be repeated here; suffice it to say, the hard-fought contest ended in a treaty of peace between the parent country and its contumacious offspring, in the year 1783, with England's acknowledgment of their independence, under the name of the United States of America.

The two gallant Poles returned to Europe, and onward to their own country, by a route tracked by former brave deeds; through France, Germany, and other lands, marked by the Gustavuses, the Montecuculi, the Turennes, the Condes, the Marlboroughs, the Eugenes, champions alike of national peace and national glory on those widely-extended plains and bulwarked frontiers, till the belligerent clouds of a still more threatening hostility than any of those repelled invasions were seen hovering luridly over their own beloved country. Warned thus, during their pleasant travel, of the coming events whose shadows seemed to rise on every side of Poland, in forms appalling to the luxurious, the avaricious, the indolently selfish, of every description in the land, but which only roused and nerved the hearts and arms of her two sons, courageous in the simplicity of their purpose—Poland's preservation! they hastened in that moment to her bosom.