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NIEMCEWICZ, JULIAN URSIN. 



NIEMCEWICZ, JULIAN URSIN. 



608 



His comedy of the ' Deputy's Return ' (' Powrot Posla '), according to 

 Bentkowski in his ' Historya Literanery Polskiey,' " made an epoch in 

 the annals of the Polish comic stage." Singularly enough, this play 

 was afterwards indirectly the cause of the formation of the great lexicon 

 of the Polish language by Linde [LlNDE]. On the 3rd of May 1792, 

 the anniversary of the constitution, another play by Nierncewicz, 

 entitled ' Casimir the Great,' was acted at the national rejoicings. It 

 was the last great day of rejoicing in the annals of Poland. The 

 confederation of Targowica succeeded in overthrowing the new consti- 

 tution, and Niemcewicz and others of its eminent supporters were 

 driven to take refuge in Germany. The second partition of Poland 

 followed, and an insurrection was commenced against it at Cracow by 

 Koscius/ko in 1794, which had six months of succe.-s. Niemcewicz, 

 who wast Kosciuszko' s constant adviser and became his aide-de-camp, 

 was at his side during the whole campaign, and wrote moat of the 

 proclamations and bulletins issued in the general's name. On the 10th 

 of October 1794 the cause of Poland was ruined by the fatal battle of 

 Macieiowice, rashly commenced by Kosciuszko against an immensely 

 superior force of Russians under Fersen. Niemcewicz, while charging 

 the enemy at the head of the militia of Brzesc, received a wound 

 which disabled his right arm, wag surrounded by a band of Cossaks 

 and taken prisoner on the field. Kosciuszko waa found the same 

 evening lying among the dead, but he still breathed, and in a few days 

 the friends were sent captives to the Russian capital. 

 * For two years Niemcewicz remained a prisoner in the fortress of 

 St. Petersburg, in a damp room, without any company but his servant 

 and two guards, who remained with him day ami night to prevent 

 escape or suicide. He waa never permitted to go out in the open air, 

 and his only exercise was to pace his room, in which his tread wore a 

 diagonal rut in the floor. This unusual severity was attributed to 

 his having spoken disrespectfully at the diet and in his ' Gazette ' of 

 the Empress Catherine, and to his having exercised what the Russians 

 considered a pernicious influence on the mind of Kosciuszko. Ue was 

 however after a time allowed books and the use of pens and paper, 

 but big mind was too harassed by his confinement and its causes to be 

 able to turn these indulgences, such as they were, to advantage. In 

 composition he thought himself equal in captivity to translation only. 

 Having received a volume of Pope's ' Works ' to read, which ho was 

 only to keep for three days, he transcribed the whole of tho ' Rape of 

 tho Lock ' in English in the course of that time with his left hand, 

 his tight arm being still disabled from his wound, and then made his 

 translation at leisure. This he dedicated in a few lines of verse to his 

 friend and co-editor Hostowski, who he had discovered waa for a time 

 confined in the next cell. The imprisonment of the Polish patriots 

 waa put an end to by tha death of the Empress Catherine and the 

 accession of Paul in November 1796. The new emperor went in 

 person to Kosciuszko to tell htm he was free; and when Kosciuszko 

 asked if his friends were to be free also, Paul replied that they were, 

 though there had been great opposition in his council to the liberation 

 of Potocki and Niemcewicz, the two great orators of the diet. Before 

 they were finally allowed to depart, however, all the Poles were obliged 

 to take an oath of fidelity to the czar. During their captivity the third 

 partition of Poland bad taken place, and they could now scarcely be 

 said to have a country to return to. Kosciuszko, though still suffering 

 from hu wounds at Macieiowice, determined to emigrate to America, 

 and asked Niemcewicz to accompany him. They passed through 

 London, where they were the object of universal sympathy, and arrived 

 at Philadelphia in 1797. 



In the United States Niemcewicz remained some years, and in 1800 

 was married to Mrs. Liviugston-Kean, a lady of one of the most dis- 

 tinguished families in New York. He kept a diary of his travels in 

 America, which he at one time expressed an intention of publishing, 

 but of which nothing has we believe yet appeared, except an account 

 of a three weeks' vi-it to General Washington at Mount Vernou, con- 

 taining details of his conversation, which is annexed to a brief biography 

 of the general. Among Niemcewicz' s acquaintances in America were 

 Jefferson, who was elected president during his stay, and the young 

 Duke of Orleans, then like himself an exile, who afterwards became 

 King Louia-l'hilippe. 



Ib 1802 Niemcewicz was permitted to return for some time to 

 Poland, on occasion of the death of his father, to settle tho family 

 affairs. Ilia friend Mostowaki waa at that time publishing at Warsaw 

 a select collection of Polish writers, ' Wybor Piaarzow Polskich,' in 

 live-ami twenty octavo volumes, and prevailed on Niemcewicz to allow 

 hi* own worka to bo included in the number, with, among them, the 

 ' Rape of the Lock,' which was written, as haa been already mentioned, 

 when the editor and the translator were tie inmates of contiguous 

 cells. Nicincewicz returned to the United States, but did not long 

 continue there. When Napoleon I. entered Poland in the campaign of 

 1806 the hopes of the Polea were powerfully excited; Nicmcuwicz 

 came back to Europe, and on the establishment of the grand-duchy of 

 Warsaw he was named by the King of Saxony, to whom Napoleon I. 

 gave it, secretary of the senate, member of the supreme council of public 

 education, and inspector of schools. The hopes of the Polea were 

 raised still higher by the campaign of 1812, when Niemcewicz endea- 

 voured to animate his countrymen against the. Russians by a periodical 

 work entitled, ' Lithuanian Letters.' The triumphant success of the 

 Russians drove the government of the grand-duchy into Germany, but 



Niemcewicz was recalled under nioro propitious circumstances than 

 he anticipated. The Emperor Alexander, who had agreed at the 

 Congress of Vienna to grant a constitution to Poland, named n com- 

 mittee to prepare one, and Niemcewicz was appointed president of the 

 committee. It was the second time he had been concerned in drawing 

 up a Polish constitution, and the second attempt was destined to fail 

 as the first, less from its own inherent faults than from the powerful 

 opposition it had to encounter. The Emperor Alexander, who had 

 first known him at his liberation in 1796, named him, in recompense 

 of his services, perpetual secretary of the senate aud member of the 

 council of public education ; and though, when the Russian re-action 

 against the Polish constitution commenced in 1821, ho was dismissed 

 from the latter post, he still retained the former. As the senate only 

 met once in three or four years his duties did not occupy much of his 

 time, aud his leisure was chiefly spent in literary pursuits. This 

 period of his life was, in spite of bad health, one of great literary 

 activity. The Society of Friends of Learning at Warsaw (Towarzystwo 

 Przyiaciol Nauk), the leading scientific body of Poland, elected him 

 their president after the death of Staszyc ; aud when it was resolved 

 that several of their members should undertake to write portions of a 

 continuation of Naruszewicz's ' History of Poland," the reign of 

 Sigismund III. was assigned to Niemcewicz, and so executed that the 

 work became instantly popular. A volume of ' Spiewy Historyczne,' 

 or ' Historical Ballads,' commemorating the glories of ancient Poland, 

 and illustrated with historical notes, had very great success ; the 

 poems were set to music, and both poetry and music are still univer- 

 sally popular throughout the country. In 1817 he pronounced at the 

 cathedral of Cracow a funeral oration over Kosciuszko, whose remains 

 had been removed there for interment from the place of his death in 

 Switzerland. In 1829 he presided at the inauguration of the statue of 

 Copernicus by Thorwaldseu, in front of the mansion of the Society of 

 Friends of Learning, in one of the principal squares of Warsaw. 



His time was being spent in these peaceful pursuits, with the 

 character of ' the Nestor of Polish literature,' when the insurrection 

 of the 29th of November 1830 [CONSTANTINE PAVLOVICH] suddenly 

 burst upon Poland. On the day after,. when it was sought to give a 

 national character to the outbreak by associating with it the first 

 names of the country, the crowd at Warsaw was impatient at the 

 slowness with which the procession of the newly-constituted pro- 

 visional government moved along the streets; but when it was 

 explained that the delay arose because the infirmities of Niemcewicz, 

 who was one of them, prevented him from moving faster, the mob at 

 once slackened its pace, and hailed with enthusiasm the veteran's 

 accession to tho cause. He had soon an opportunity of rendering 

 service by opposing the attempts of the revolutionary clubs to control 

 the government [HocnNACKi], and this he did on more than one 

 occasion. In July 1831 he was sent on a mission from the Polish 

 government to urga the interposition of the English cabinet ; but 

 some delays, interposed by the Prussian authorities, prevented him 

 from reaching his destination so early as he wished, aud even if the 

 English government had been induced to assist, the capitulation of 

 Warsaw, preceded by lamentable excesses of the revolutionary party, 

 soon put it out of their power. Niemcewicz remained in London an 

 exile for the fourth time, aud, as it proved, the last. In 1832, we 

 find by a passage in Moore's diary that Niemcewicz saw him at 

 JJowood, and paid him a visit at Slopertoii Cottage ; but the bard of 

 the ' Irish Melodies ' seems to have been quite unconscious that his 

 visitor whose name is printed by Lord John Russell 'Nimyerych' 

 was the author of a volume whose national poetry, united with music, 

 presented no small analogy to his own. Niemcewicz was about the 

 same time Prince Adam Czartoryski's agent in presenting to the 

 British Museum a small collection of seventy or eighty Polish books ; 

 and these were, we believe, the first books in the language, with the 

 exception of a few versions of the Scriptures, that ever entered the 

 national library, which has since become comparatively rich in the 

 literature of tho Slavonic languages. He also took a part in the 

 establishment of the Literary Society of Friends of Poland in London, 

 and made some speeches at meetings in Freemasons' Hall. About 

 1834 he removed to France, where he published iu French a 'Life of 

 Prince Adam Czartoryski,' and was the most conspicuous member of 

 the party which recognised that prince as their head. Active to the 

 last, iu spite of his advanced age, he established at Paris the Central 

 Polish Historical Committee. He resided for nine years at Montmo- 

 rency, noar Paris, and on the 21st of May 1841 breathed his last in 

 that capital, at the age of eighty-four. His old friend Mostowski, 

 who, like himself, had been driven into exile by the events of 1830, 

 had taken up his residence in France, aud was engaged in writing Polish 

 lives for the ' Biographic Uuiversello,' but died in 1842, before the 

 supplement had reached the letter N, aud thus the life of Niemcewicz, 

 which he would probably have written at length, is in that work 

 singularly meagre. Tho remains of the poet were honoured with a 

 public funeral in the cemetery of Montuioreucy. 



Numerous as are the works of Niemcewicz, it is said that not one 

 of them failed in producing an immediate efl'ect, and that all were 

 popular at least for a time, while many have continued BO. The 

 ' Spiewy Historyczne,' already mentioned, are the best known of all ; 

 they have been repeatedly issued iu illustrated editions, and an illus- 

 trated edition in French appeared at Paris in 1833, iu which, as in tha 



