Nil admirari, properes est una, Numici, "I have the honour to be, "Dear sir, "Your most obedient servant, "ANDREW LOFTUS. "Petersburgh, September. 1792. "P. S. Just as I was sealing this packet, the English ambassador forwarded me a short letter from your father, wherein he desires us to quit Russia immediately; and to make the best of our way to England, where you are wanted on a most urgent occasion. He explains himself no further; only repeating his orders in express com. mands, that we set off instantly. I therefore wait your directions." The whole of this epistle very much disconcerted Mr. Somerset. He had always guessed that the Baroness Surowkoff was musing herself with his vain and pedantic preceptor; but he had never entertained a suspicion that her ladyship would have carried her pleasantry to so cruel an excess. He saw clearly that the fears of Mr. Loftus, with regard to the displeasure of his parents, were far from groundless; and therefore, as there was a probability from the age of Dr. Manners, who was upwards of eighty, and afflicted with the dropsy, that the rectory of Somerset would ⚫ soon become vacant, he thought he had better oblige his poor governor, and preserve the secret for a month or two, then give him up to the chance of Sir Robert's indignation, which (he had reason to believe, from the resolution with which he carried through all his determinations) would not much favour the side of lenity. On these grounds, Pembroke resolved to write to Mr. Loftus, and ease the anxiety of his heart: although he ridiculed his vanity, he could not help feeling some compassion for the affectionate solicitude of a son and a brother; and as this last plea had won him, half angry, half grieved, and half laughing, he scribbled these hasty lines, which he immediately despatched by the courier. "TO THE REV. ANDREW LOFTUS. Petersburg "Upon my soul, sir, it is too bad! I am to burn my letters and go home! what can be the matter? what whimsical fit has seized my father, that I am recalled at a moment's notice? Faith, I am so mad at it, and his not choosing to assign any reason, but that he 'desires me to make the best of my way to England,' that I do not know how I might be tempted to act. "Another thing! you beg that I will not say a word of my ever having been in Poland; and for that purpose you have withheld the letter which I sent to you to forward to my mother. One cause of my being here, you say, was your ardor in the cause of insulted Russia; and your hatred of that levelling power which pervades all Europe.' "Well, I grant it. I understood from you and Brinicki, that you were leading me to march against a set of vioent, discontented men of rank, who in proportion as they were inflated with personal pride and insolence, despised their own order; and under the name of freedom were introducing anarchy throughout the country which Catharine would have graciously protected. All this I find is false. But you both may have been misled; the Count by interest; and you, by misrepresentation; therefore, I do not perceive why you should be in such a terror. The wisest man in the world may see through bad lights; and why should you think that my father would never pardon your having been so unlucky? "Yet, to satisfy your dreads of such tidings ruining you with Sir Robert, I will not be the first to tell him of our quixoting. Only remember, my good sir, though to oblige you, I withhold all my letters to my mother, and when I arrive in England, shall lock up my lips from mentioning Poland yet, positively, I will not be mute one day longer than that in which my father presents you with the living of Somerset ; then you will be independent of his displeasure; and I may and will declare my everlasting gratitude to this illustrious family. Heigho! I am half crazy when I think of leaving them. I must tear myself from this heaven on earth! The days have passed with me as minutes. Alas, alas! that I quit this mansion of comfort and affection, to wander with you, in some rumbling old coach, over break and through briar! Well, patience, patience! Another such a drubbing given to my quandum friends the Russians, and with victory perched like an eagle on thier laurelled brows,' I may have some chance of wooing the Sobieskies to the banks of the Thames. At present I have not sufficient patience to keep me in good humour. "Meet me this day week at Dantzic: I shall there embark for England. You had better not bring any of the servants with you; they might blab discharge them at Petersburgh, and hire others for yourself and me when you arrive at the sea-port. "I have the honour to remain, "Your most obedient servant, "Villanow, September, 1792." "When Somerset joined his friends at supper, and imparted to them the commands of his father, an immediate change was produced in the spirits of the party. During the lamentations of the ladies and the murmurs of the young men, the countess tried to dispel the effects of the information by addressing Pembroke with a smile and saying, "But we shall hope that you have seen enough at Villanow, to tempt you back again at no very distant period? Tell Lady Somerset that you have left a second mother in Poland, who will long to receive another visit from her adopted son.' Yes my dear madam," returned he, "and I shall hope before a very distant period, to see two kind mothers, united as intimately by friendship, as they are now in my heart." Thaddeus listened to all this with a saddened countenance. He had not been much accustomed to disappointment, and his feelings, when disturbed, hardly knew how to proportion the uneasiness to the privation.-Hope, and all the hiliarities of youth flourised in his soul; his fen tares continually glowed with animation, waile beaming of his eyes, ever answered to the smile on his lips. Hence, the slightest veering on his mind was per ceptible to the countess, who, turning round, saw him leaning back in his chair, with his arms folded, and his colour heightened, whilst Pembroke, with greater force and vociferation, was running through various invectives against the hastiness of his recall. "Come, come, Thaddeus," cried he, and parting the thick approaching curl on his forehead, "let us think no more of this separation till it arrives. You know that anticipation of evil is the death of happiness; and now it will be a kind of suicide, should we destroy the hours which we may yet enjoy together, in vain complainings that they are too soon to terminate." A little more exhortation from the countess, and a maternal kiss, which she imprinted on his cheek, restored him to cheerfulness; and the evening passed away pleasanter than it had portended. Much as the palatine esteemed Pembroke Somerset, his mind was too deeply absorbed in the losses of his country to attend to less considerable cares. He beheld the republic on the verge of destruction, with firmness and indignation, awaiting the earthquake which was to engulph it in the neighbouring nations. He saw the storm approaching; but he determined, whilst there remained even one spot of vantage ground above the general wreck, that Poland should yet have a name and a defender. These thoughts possessed him, these plans engaged him; and he had not leisure to regret pleasure when he was struggling for existence. The empress continued to pour her armies into the heart of the kingdom. The king of Prussia boldly flying from his treaties refused his succour; and the emperor of Germany, following the example of so great a prince, did not blush to show that his word was equally contemptible. Whilst the Russians were making their advances with sword and rapine, Frederick openly avowed his designs to be in concert with Petersburgh; and Poland accor dingly was attacked on every quarter. Continual despatches arrived, that the villages were laid waste; that neither age, nor sex, nor situation, prevented their unfortunate inhabitants from becoming the victims of cruelty; and that all the frontier provinces were in flames. The Diety was called and the debates agitated with all the anxiety of men who are met to decide on their dearest interest. The feelings of the benevolent Stanislaus bled at the dreadful picture of his people's sufferings; and hardly able to restrain his tears, he answered the animated exordiums of Sobieski for resistance to the last, with an appeal immediately to his heart. * "What is it you urge to do, my lord ?" said he, "Was it not to secure the happiness of my subjects, that I laboured? and finding that impracticable, what advantage would it be to them, should I pertinaciously oppose their small numbers against the accumulated hordes of the north? What is my kingdom but the comfort of my people? What will it avail me, to see them fall around me, man by man, and the few that remain, hanging in speechless sorrow over their graves? Such a sight would break my heart. Poland without its people, would be a desert; and I, rather a hermet than a king." "In vain the palatine combatted this argument, and the quiet that a peace would now afford, by declaring it could only be temporary. In vain, he told his majesty, that he would purchase safety for the present race, at the vast expense, of not only the liberty of posterity, but of its probity and happiness. "However you disguise slavery," cried he, "it is slavery still. Its chains, though wreathed with roses, not only fasten on the body, but rivet on the mind. They bend it from the proudest virtue, to a debasement beneath calculation. They disgrace honour; they trample upon justice. They transform the legions of Rome into a band of singers. They prostrate the sons of Athens and of Sparta at the feet of cowards. They make man abjure his birthright, bind himself to another's will, and give that into a tyrant's hands, which he received as a deposit from heaven, his reason, his conscience, and his soul. Think on this, and then, if you can, subjugate Poland to her enemies.' Stanislaus weakened by years, and impelled by disap |