J831.J Poland, Pad and Present. 5 



The great emigration of the Goths from the Baltic provinces to the 

 south left their ancient possessions open to the bordering nations. The 

 Poles took their share of the abandoned territory., and made themselves 

 masters of the north-east portion of what was afterwards the kingdom 

 of Poland. 



The first mention of this people in modern history is in the year 550, 

 when they formed a government, under Leek, brother of Cracus, or Creek, 

 first Duke of Bohemia, who collected the tribes, and founded a castle, 

 or centre of a city. In this operation one of those omens occurred which 

 paganism always looked on as the voice of fate ; the workmen found an 

 eagle's nest in the wood which they were clearing away for the site of 

 the fortress. The nest was called, in Sclavonic, gniazdo ; from this the 

 new city was named Gnesua ; and the eagle was transferred to the ban- 

 ner of Poland. 



The history of all the Gothic tribes is the same. Their first state is 

 that of scattered families ; their second, that of a tribe under a military 

 chieftain, elected by the suffrages of the people. The chieftain becomes 

 a tyrant, or transmits his power to a feeble successor. The people then 

 dethrone the race, break up the tyranny., and come back to the old 

 system of free election. 



The descendants of Leek reigned a hundred years ; but the dynasty 

 was then subverted, and provincial military chieftains were substituted 

 for it. Twelve governors entitled Palatines, or Waiwodes (generals, from 

 Woina war, and Wodz a chief), were created. But their violences dis- 

 gusted the people ; and one of them, Cracus, whose conduct was an 

 exception, was raised to the throne by the elective voice of the nation. 

 In some years after his death his family were displaced by the Palatines, 

 and a civil war followed. The Hungarians took this opportunity to 

 ravage Poland, in A.D. 751; but a peasant, Przemyslas, saved his 

 country. Collecting together the broken forces of Poland, he approach- 

 ed the Hungarian camp as if with the intention of offering battle. 

 With his barbarian courage, he mingled civilized ingenuity ; he fixed 

 branches of trees on a conspicuous point of ground, which he inter- 

 mixed with armed men, so ranged as to give the appearance of a large 

 force, in order of battle. As soon as day broke, and the Hungarians 

 perceived, as they thought, their enemy defying them to the en- 

 counter, they rushed on them with contemptuous rashness. But the 

 Polish post retired, exhibiting what, to the astonished Hungarians 4 

 seemed a forest suddenly plucked up and moving away. Yet the view 

 of Polish flight overcame the terror at the spectacle. The Hungarians 

 rushed on, until they found themselves inevitably intangled in a real forest. 

 The Polish leader now charged, totally routed the enemy and left not a man 

 to tell the tale. But their camp still stood. Here too his ingenuity was ex- 

 erted. He dexterously clothed his men in the dresses of the dead ; divi- 

 ded his troops into small bodies, and sent them towards various avenues of 

 the camp, as if they were Hungarians returned from the battle. The stra- 

 tagem succeeded, the Poles were suffered freely to enter the Hungarian 

 camp ; once within the rampart they drew their sabres, fell on their 

 unprepared enemy, and slaughtered the whole remaining multitude, 

 with the exception of a few fugitives, who escaped on the first onset, 

 and who served the Polish cause most effectually by spreading the fame 

 and terror of the national arms through all the countries on the Baltic", 



