12 Poland, Past and Present. [JAN, 



perous reign of twenty-three years, left Poland once more to the perils 

 of a contested throne. Frederic Augustus, Elector of Saxony, at last 

 was chosen. No choice could have been more disastrous. Augustus had 

 promised to restore Livonia to Poland j but it was in possession of the 

 Swedes, who were now rapidly rising to the highest distinction as a mili- 

 tary power. Charles the Twelfth, the lion of the north, had filled his 

 countrymen with his own spirit ; and the attempt to wrest Livonia from 

 the first warrior of the age was visited with deadly retribution. Augustus 

 had formed a league with the King of Denmark, and the Czar, Peter the 

 Great a man, whose rude virtues were made to redeem the indolent and 

 sullen character of his barbarian country. The Swedish king rushed 

 upon the Saxon and Polish forces like a whirlwind; they were totally de- 

 feated. In the next campaign, a still larger army was defeated at Clissow 

 with still more dreadful slaughter. An assembly held at Warsaw, under 

 Charles, now declared Augustus incapable of the crown. Charles pro- 

 posed to give the sovereignty to the third son of Sobieski : but the prince 

 magnanimously refused a throne which he considered the right of his 

 elder brothers, both of whom were in a Saxon fortress. Starislas 

 Leizinski was at this period accidentally deputed to Charles on some 

 business of the senate. The king was struck with his manly appearance. 

 " How can we proceed to an election," said the Deputy, (( while James 

 and Constantine Sobieski are in a dungeon ?" " How can we deliver 

 your Republic/' exclaimed Charles, abruptly, " if we do not elect a new 

 king ?" The suggestion was followed by offering the sceptre to Stanislas, 

 who was soon after., in 1705, proclaimed monarch of Poland. Charles 

 now plunged furiously into Saxony, and broke the power of the Elector. 

 But the caprice of war is proverbial. The Russians had been at last 

 taught to fighfc even by their defeats. The ruinous battle of Pultowa 

 drove Charles from the field and the throne. Stanislas fled ; Augustus was 

 restored in 1710, and Poland was left to acquire strength, by a temporary 

 rest, for new calamities. In the winter of 1735, Russia was delivered 

 from the only enemy that had threatened her ruin Charles was killed at 

 the siege of Fredericshall. 



The reign of Peter had raised Russia into an European power. 

 Strength produced ambition, and the successors of Peter began to inter- 

 fere closely with the policy of Poland. The death of Frederick the 

 Third, in 17^4, gave the first direct opportunity of influencing the 

 election, and Couut Stanislas Poniatowski, whose personal graces had 

 recommended him to the empress,, and whose subserviency made him a 

 fit instrument for the Russian objects, was chosen king in 1764. 

 Bribes and the bayonet were his claims, yet there were times when he 

 exhibited neither the dependence of a courtier nor the weakness of a 

 slave. 



Anew era was now to begin in the history of Poland. Religious per- 

 secution was her ruin. The Reformation had been extensively spread 

 in the provinces. From an early peri-od the Polish hierarchy, devoted 

 to Rome, had always exerted the most rancorous spirit against the Pro- 

 testants. A succession of persecuting decrees had been made^ chiefly 

 from the beginning of the 10th century. But by the general disturb- 

 ances of the government, or the wisdom of the monarchs, they had 

 nearly fallen into oblivion. But in the interregnum between the death 

 of Frederic, and the election of Stanislas, the popish party carried in 

 the convocation-diet a series of tyrannical measures, prohibiting the 



