czar are at present, composed of these same hordes, but better exercised in military tactics, and inured to battle. Russia was two hundred and forty years under the Mongolian yoke, has been penetrated with Timur-Khanism, and has appropriated its spirit and organization. She represents the Asiatic principle, which has grown stronger by civilized despotism, and now threatens Europe. The Russian czar has power a hundred times more extensive than the arbitrary potentate of Japan, because he unites in himself Kuba and Daira, that is, the unconditional political and religious powers. He commands his subjects to believe that all the earth is his property; that nations combating against him, are seditious traitors to their fatherland. He is king of kings, more than the Chinese czar, a lieutenant of God, and a visible God. His order is a law; before and behind him goes the ancient Babylonish tyranny, the old Persian cruelty and barbarism. Where he walks, there are the weeping and anguish of many years. The Russian czar threatens Europe, for he possesses the greater part of it, and, what is yet worse, he is the powerful pope of that Christian confession which, not only in Russia, but in the countries of the ancient Eastern empire, reckons millions of blind believers. His European possessions, and Christianity, lead the Russian czar to various relations with Europe, and open to him an extensive field for his Satanic, artful doings. He is active, and does not neglect his business. He has already swallowed Poland, and now opens his mouth for Turkey. As many European countries fall under his yoke, in many victories, so much space does Asia gain in Europe. The Russian czar, by his alliance with Austria, which delights in the arbitrary will and the Asiatic principles, has strengthened his influence in that country, and shakes Germany by the neck. His hand reaches already to the Alps and the Rhine, threatening liberty, light, and the progress of Europe; and Europe experiences this shame, in consequence of permitting the robbery and the dismemberment of Poland. By the unsuccessful Polish and Hungarian revolutions, Asia gained a splendid victory over Europe, and the Russian czar strengthened and obviously extended his influence over the civilized world. The Khanish despotism compels the friends of freedom, light, and progress to groan everywhere in prisons. The censorship was established over all literary and patriotic pens; free lips were sealed by the institution of the secret police and the spies of this new "holy inquisition." In our days, abominable St. Petersburgh is what shameful Rome was once, the murderer of the body and the spirit. The Russian czar, surrounded by servile literati and his many mercenaries, preaches to the eastern and southern Slavonians about the blessings of blind obedience. Servile mouths represent the Russian czar as their deliverer from the yoke of the Turks and the Germans, and call on men to enroll themselves under the standard of Panslavism; they, however, can show nothing but the physical power of Russia, instead of intellectual and moral power. They breathe in the despotic spirit of the emperor and his military government. The Poles are singing hymns of liberty, light, and progress among the Slavonians. They send to them the words of freedom; they nourish them with the sound moral food of their rich literature, old and new, and are certain of their victory upon this field of battle until there comes a general war of Europe against Asia.” Trentowski justly warns Europe against the danger which threatens it; the Slavonian people, numbering almost a tenth part of the whole population on the globe, because they pay homage to the Asiatic principle, will be able to oppress all the rest of Europe; but if they love freedom, light, and progress, Europe, by their aid, will conquer Asia, and spread her civilization there. They are a people of the future; the epoch of their regeneration is come. They have passed their studies in the most perfect school under a foreign yoke, in order to prepare themselves to accomplish the mission which Providence has destined for them. It is true that the Russian czar moves, by his agents, all the Turkish and the Austrian-Slavonian people, by his idea of Panslavism, wishing to unite them under his despotic yoke. But the southern Slavonian countries will no longer endure the idea of submitting to the knouts of the Cossacks, instead of forming constitutional states; and Poland, if she be true to herself, at any change, will be able to establish herself as a constitutional middle state between Russia and the southern Slavonians. She has been, and will be, a bright star for all the Slavonian liberals, who will prefer liberty, light, and progress, to slavery, darkness, and stagnation. The Poles, continually fulfilling their mission, now oppose to the Moscovite Panslavism the constitutional union of independent and free Slavonian states, united, so far as circumstances will permit, by the strong central power of confederation. This idea will unite with them the Russian liberals and patriots. Even now, some distinguished and learned Russians have left their native land, endured persecutions and confisca tion of their property, and have become members of the Polish moral government. They write and publish books about liberty and progress, paying a public homage to the eldest and most enlightened sister of all Slavonia, to Poland, for her divine love of truth and holy duty. "Who, indeed," says our Polish patriot and philosopher, "can support and lead on the Slavonian countries, oppressed for centuries? Who can deliver them from slavery and the yoke of the Turks and the Germans? Who, in this respect, can come with aid to them? Shall it be the Poles, with their history rich in splendid deeds and sacrifices for liberty; with their liberal philosophy, polity, poetry, and literature; or the Russians, with their physical power? The latter might deliver them from the yoke of the Turks and the Germans, but could not awake their own souls, which hunger only for power over animals in the human form. Shall this be done by the Polish moral force, or the Moscovite physical force? by the Polish spirit, or the Moscovite knout?” Finally, he calls on them, with all the power of his soul: "O southern and eastern Slavonian people! What does the Russian czar offer you? The religious and political despotism blended together; the ecclesiastical Dalay-Llamaism and Japanism of government; the papism of the Middle Ages and the ancient Roman empire, united in the autocrat, unlimited by any law; the external and the internal, the earthly and the heavenly tyranny; the death of body, spirit, and soul;-in a word, the Asiatic principle. He will order your children to be torn away from the breasts of their mothers to be trained up for Moscovite soldiers, who must deny their own parents and be murderers of their own fathers and brothers, according to order, and under the threats of a thousand lashes. His kibitkas will carry you, by hundreds, to Siberia and Kamtschatka. He will crowd his political prisons with your patriots; he will kill you with knouts, like wild beasts; will give you a secret police and spies; will demoralize you so far that the husband will be afraid of his wife, the father of his son, and the mother of her daughter. You will be ashamed of your beloved native speech, and ordered to acknowledge the Russian government-language for your own. Look at Poland, poor Poland, mortified without measure; Poland, once so celebrated! Such a lot awaits you. You will recall with sorrow your present situation, because, not only German, but even Turkish slavery, is heaven in comparison with the Moscovite yoke. Such is the salvation you may hope from the Russian czar! And what do the Poles bring you? Liberty, light, and progress; the acknowledgment of separate nationality, the Slavonian confederacy freely constituted, the autonomy of nations; constitutions adapted to their local circumstances and wishes; independence, equality, and brotherhood; the European and the American principles. Already, today, you make revolutions, wishing to break asunder the chains of Turkish slavery. Which principle, then, is it, the Moscovite or the Polish, which corresponds with your feelings? O Slavonian people, hate the Russian czar, as embodied Satan! keep firmly with the Poles, and you will be independent, free, and happy." Trentowski addresses his countrymen as follows: Literary men of Poland, seize your pen, and write for your beloved nation, because a great responsibility lies upon you. Open to her the gates of the future! Take off from her eyes the old bandage, that she may see the bright sun of her mission and destiny. Scholars of Poland, enlighten your nation, that she may know what she was, what she is, and what she ought to be; enlighten her, for spiritual darkness is the most terrible of deaths. Preach to her, every hour, that a great, magnificent, eternal deity constitutes her soul; that she, therefore, shall not and can not die; that there is no death for her, unless she herself suppresses her own immortality, by folly and ignorance, moral dulness, cowardice, want of self-respect, incapacity for self-sacrifice, and by vile deeds. Ye learned men of Poland, teach the Polish people, so eminently gifted by nature, to think, and the numerous damned nightmares of superstition and ignorance shall cease to oppress them. Teach them to think, and they will know themselves; will feel their dignity, and will not bow before vain pageantry, titles, human favors, and other idols. Teach them to think, for thought precedes feeling and action. And you other patriots, support with your aiding hand the national literati, for wisdom is today more necessary to our fatherland than at any other time. When a general light shall have been spread, then the day of our general, moral, and national salvation shall follow. The genius of Poland will feel his heavenly power, and God will be with her." The Polish patriots, and all liberals in Europe, speak such language to Poland, and to the whole Slavonian people, groaning under the triple despotism of three Cæsars-the Russian, the Austrian, and the Turkish. This tendency has already its martyrs; books of freedom are scattered among the Turkish and the Austrian Slavonians; Christian missionaries peacefully prepare for their moral regeneration; God himself blesses efforts, so just, for divine liberty, light, and moral progress. And, as Campbell says, between the Russians and the Poles, or Asia and Europe, "That is darkness combating with light; Earth's adverse principles for empire fight; States caring not what Freedom's price may be, For body-killing tyrants cannot kill The public soul's bereditary will." ART. II. CAUSES OF THE PRESENT CONDITION OF IRELAND. 1. Tracts relative to the Laws against Popery in Ireland. By Edmund Burke. [In Works, Vol. V., New York, 1813.] 2. The History of Ireland from the Invasion of Henry II., with a Preliminary Discourse on the Ancient State of that Kingdom. By Thomas Leland, D. D., Senior Fellow of Trinity College and Prebendary of St. Patrick's, Dublin. 3 vols. 4to. London, 1773. THOUGH these Tracts of Burke are not all finished, and some of them mere fragments, we consider them more valuable than any other work on this particular subject. On questions relating to Ireland, with which he was so thoroughly acquainted, and in whose concerns he took such a deep interest, we think even the unfinished works of Burke more valuable than the most finished productions of any other writer. In these tracts, the author endeavors to give a full and clear view of the laws against Popery in Ireland, enacted in the reigns of William and Mary, and of Queen Anne. He shows very strongly their absurdity, injustice, and cruelty, and their ruinous effects on the character, morals, and prosperity of the people. It was said, by an English writer, about twenty years ago, that the history of Ireland is full of instruction and interest; and that to the people of England, especially, and of this age, it holds out lessons far more precious, far more forcible, and far more immediately applicable than all that is elsewhere recorded in the annals of mankind. Ireland, so important a subject to the people of Great Britain, is also one of much interest to Americans. Formerly subject to the same sovereign, and a part of the same empire, no inconsiderable portion of our population is of Irish origin; and this proportion is rapidly, and, in the opinion of many, most alarmingly on the increase. The emigrants from Ireland to America are more numerous than from all the rest of Europe. For several years past, from one to two hundred thousand people have come from this island to our shores, and the effects are visible and striking in many parts of our country, and especially in our large cities. In our political contests, |