SPECIMENS OF PUBLIC VIRTUE. 2Q3 



upon his mind. He may be not yet the last whose free words are 

 re-echoed by those venerable walls. The spark of his soul may be 

 yet fanned into a blaze, which may inflame the whole country. The 

 culprit, whom the executioner's axe awaits next morning, dreams of 

 earthly happiness, till he is roused by the rattling of his chains. The 

 patriot fancies the independence and greatness of his country, till his 

 brilliant vision is dispelled by the clash of arms, by the watchword 

 exchanged in a foreign language between the sentinels of an army, 

 which is to dictate the decisions of his nation's representatives ! 



On the morning of the 22nd of April, a whole regiment invested 

 the royal castle. The public were even excluded from its inner 

 courts. As soon as the gates were open, the nuncios, who passed the 

 night without, joined their leader, for whose safety the whole popu- 

 lation of Warsaw sent anxious prayers to heaven. 



At one o'clock the ambassadors of the three courts arrived to wait 

 upon the king, and to request nay, command his assent to the act of 

 the confederation. They threatened him that his refusal would be 

 immediately followed by the arrival of the armies of the three courts, 

 the ransacking of the capital, the slaughter of its inhabitants ; in which 

 common doom his royal person, his ministers, senators, and the 

 whole diet, might be involved. The king, after some delay, signed 

 that infamous act, under the same roof where the obstinate presence 

 of some few patriots honourably protested against it. 



The diet, thus confederated, did not meet on that day in the hall 

 of their sittings. The traitors did not dare to face the patriots, who 

 persevered till the last in their bold design. 



When, next morning, Poninski entered the hall, he found Reyton 

 stretched on the ground. Life scarcely lingered in that frame ; ex- 

 hausted by the anxiety, the constant working of a feverish mind, the 

 fast endured during thirty-six hours almost senseless, he was 

 carried away from the hall, in which, immediately afterwards, was 

 sealed the destruction of that liberty which he so heroically though 

 vainly sought to defend. 



No not in vain, because even that diet, although composed of 

 members elected under the awe of foreign arms, although intrigue 

 and bribery had the fullest play, would not readily assent to every 

 demand of the three powers. The treaty of partition has been modi- 

 fied by it. 



The name of Reyton was still so dreaded, that on the 23d of April 

 Poninski waited upon him, to bring him the intelligence that the 

 decree of his outlawry was cancelled, and offering him 2000 ducats if 

 he would voluntarily leave the country. " I have brought with me 

 5000 ducats," answered the republican, indignantly. " I offer them 

 to you, if you but give up the Marshal's staff, and with it corruption 

 arid dishonour !" A Prussian general present at that interview could 

 not refrain from exclaiming, " Optime vie! gratulor tibi; optime 

 rem iuam egisti." 



Some years afterwards the full measure of injustice was perpetrated 

 on Poland. The shattered mind of Reyton was not able to bear that 

 shock. He lost his senses. In a fit of madness, he drunk out of a 



