905 



ZALUSKI, JOZEP ANDRZEJ. 



ZAMOYSKF. 



OC6 



ZALUSKI, JOZEP ANDRZEJ, or JOSEPH ANDREW, the 

 founder of the great Zalueki library, the largest collection- ever formed 

 at private expense, was born in 1701, and was the son of a Polish 

 nobleman, who was Waywode of Rawa. The family gave several 

 dignitaries to the church ; Joseph's uncle, Andrzej Chrysostom, 

 author of a series of letters often quoted by Polish historians, the 

 ' Epistolao Zalusciansc,' published in four folio volumes, was bishop 

 of Warmia; his elder brother, Andrzej Stanislaw, was bishop of 

 Cracow ; he himself became bishop of Kiev. The chief business of 

 his life was the collection of books. Even when a young man it was 

 seen, with surprise, that he stinted his table to enrich his library, and 

 after a frugal dinner supped on " a morsel of bread and cheese." 

 The position of his uncle, who was chancellor to King Augustus II. 

 of Saxony and Poland, introduced the nephew to early favour at 

 court, but when, on the death of Augustus, the contest for the accession 

 arose between his son Augustus III. and Stanislaus Leszczynski, 

 Zaluski espoused the cause of Stanislaus, who sent him to Rome as his 

 ambassador to the pope. From Rome he repaired, after three years, 

 to tho court of the expelled Stanislaus in Lorraine j but, after a time, 

 made his peace with the possessor of the throne, and returned to 

 Poland. Here, in conjunction with his brother the Bishop of Cracow, 

 he exerted himself to form a library, such as Poland had never seen, 

 and fully succeeded. He spared no expense, and, according to Le- 

 lewel, the historian of Polish libraries, he hardly shrunk from any 

 means to accomplish his purpose, and finally, almost all that was valu- 

 able in the scattered monastic and other libraries of Poland, became 

 concentrated in the great collection of Zaluski. His aims were gene- 

 rous; the two brothers opened their library to the public in 1748, in 

 a separate building, fitted up at their expense at Warsaw. The Bishop 

 of Cracow died in 1758 ; the surviving brother continued to devote his 

 fortune and his cares to the augmentation of the library, in which 

 he spent most of his time as a reader. In 1767 he was deprived of 

 even this pleasure. Taking part in a demonstration made by some 

 of the Polish bishops at the Diet against the Dissidents, whom they 

 denounced in a spirit as impolitic as it was uncharitable, Zaluski was 

 seized by order of the Russian ambassador Repnin, and sent to 

 Kaluga, where he remained on compulsion for some years. He was 

 allowed as an indulgence by the Russian government to purchase 3000 

 volumes from Holland to console him in his solitude ; but his thoughts 

 still dwelt on his own library, and he employed part of his time in 

 drawing up a bibliographical work from memory on the authors whom 

 it contained who treated of Polish matters. When, at length, in 1773, 

 he was allowed to return to Warsaw, he declared that he was nearly 

 killed by grief by the state in which he found his cherished collection. 

 The librarian, Jauocki, a very eminent bibliographer, had become nearly 

 blind ; a sub-librarian, who had been appointed to assist him, had 

 plundered the institution by selling the books, and everything was in a 

 state of decay. Early the next year, on the 9th of January 1774, 

 Zaluski died. The fate of his library was as remote as possible from 

 his desires. He had provided by his will in 1761 that the Jesuits 

 should have the management of it after his decease, but the Jesuits 

 were suppressed before his death, and it fell under the jurisdiction 

 of a new committee of education. By his expenses in acquiring it he 

 had burdened his estates with a debt of 400,000 florins ; the heirs of 

 his property applied to the state for an equitable compensation, and 

 their claim was admitted to be reasonable, but, in the then state of 

 Poland it is not surprising that no compensation was ever paid. 

 Some of the monastic libraries from which he had acquired valuable 

 books complained that they had not received a proper return, and 

 were only quieted by being presented with some of the duplicates. 

 No funds being allotted to the library it received no augmentations 

 after Zaluski's death. In the year following that event, the unfortunate 

 Janocki became completely blind, and for some years that followed 

 while he was at the head of the library, plunder was carried on 

 on a large scale. A bull which Zaluski had procured from the pope 

 to excommunicate any one who removed a book, appeared to be worse 

 than useless. Finally caine the great misfortune of all. At the par- 

 tition of Poland in 1795, Russia seized on the Zaluski library as the 

 property of the state, and it was conveyed in a mass to St. Petersburg, 

 Much of it, it is said, was lost on the way, but when what arrived 

 was counted it was found to amount to the enormous mass of 262,640 

 volumes, and about 25,000 engravings. It is curious to remark that 

 among all these books only 25 were in the Russian language, and that 

 in the great library of Poland the number in Polish (4051) was less 

 than the number in English (4368). The great mass was in Latin, 

 French, and German, and more than 80,000 of the volumes were on 

 theology. At the time of Zaluski's death in 1774, this library, amassed 

 by a private individual, was of much more than twice the extent of 

 the library of the British Museum the national collection of England. 

 When, however, in 1814 the Emperor Alexander went over the Museum 

 Library, and remarked, as he then well might, on its scantiness, the 

 librarian Plauta is said to have replied that if small it had at all events 

 been honestly acquired, and the emperor was silent. For many years 

 after its transfer the Zaluski library, or as it is now called 'The 



k Imperial Library at St. Petersburg,' continued to remain unaugmented, 

 and the first accessions of importance it received were from the con- 

 fiscated Polish libraries of Prince Czartoryski at Pulawy, and the 

 ' Friends of Science ' at Warsaw. Of late it has received large addi- 



tions by purchase, and now takes a high position in Europe, but it is 

 a collection on which however splendid it may become, no Russian 

 can ever look with a feeling of legitimate pride. 



As an author, the name of Zaluski does not stand high, and indeed, 

 when it is considered that he was a man of very extensive reading, and 

 in early life had travelled in Italy, France, and England, the character 

 of his writings excites our surprise. One which has been already 

 referred to as composed at Kaluga, the ' Biblioteka Historykow Pols- 

 kich,' or Library of Polish Historians, was first published under the 

 editorship of Muczkowski at Cracow in 1832. This bibliographical 

 work, strange to say, is composed in a species of blank verse. One 

 chapter is on English writers in Poland, and commences thus : 



" Anonim pod tytulem ' New Account ' relacja 

 O Polsce, Litwie, wydal i to co sie dzialo 

 Od smierci Krola Jana," &c. 



Under the title of the ' New Account ' 



An author, name unknown, published a book 



On Toland and on Lithuania too, &c. 



The contents of the whole volume are of a similar cast. Another 

 book by Zaluski is a sort of autobiography in verse of the dryest 

 description. He ventured to translate some plays from Metastasio 

 and Voltaire ; but these efforts are spoken of as of a piece with the 

 ' Biblioteka.' Some pamphlets against the Dissidents, a short history 

 of the noble houte of Jablonowski, &c., are the most conspicuous 

 of his other publications. 



ZAMOYSKI, or Z AMOSC. The Polish house of this name occupies 

 a distinguished place in the annals of this nation. It is a branch of 

 the family of Saryusz, and has given three eminently distinguished 

 men to Poland. 



JOHN-SARIUS-ZAMOTSKI, grand- chancellor of Poland, was born at 

 Skokow, of which his father was castellan, in the palatinate of Culm, 

 on the 1st of April 1541. John was sent to Paris to prosecute his 

 studies, at the age of twelve years, and on his first arrival was received 

 into the service of the dauphin, afterwards Francis II. Finding how- 

 ever that the duties of this appointment interfered with his studies, 

 Zamoyski quitted the court, and went, to use his own expression, to 

 hide himself in the ( pays Latin.' His favourite pursuits in the uni- 

 versity of Paris were mathematics, philosophy, and j urisprudence. At 

 the request of his father he subsequently repaired to the university of 

 Strasbourg to perfect himself in the study of Greek, and to Padua to 

 complete his legal studies. 



At Padua the study of the canon law led him to pay considerable 

 attention to the writings of the Fathers, and this pursuit is believed 

 to have confirmed his devotion to the Romish Church, to which his 

 father's allegiance had been shaken. While at Padua he published 

 several works, which were favourably received at the time, and have 

 maintained their .reputation. In 1562 he published the funeral ora- 

 tion which he delivered on tho celebrated Faloppio. In 1563 he pub- 

 lished an essay on the constitution of the Roman Senate, ' De Senatu 

 Romano Libri II.,' so learned and critical, that De Thou attributed it 

 to Zamoyski's teacher Sigonius, and Graevius has inserted it in his 

 ' Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanarum.' Having been elected rector 

 of the university in 1564, Zamoyski caused a collection of its privileges 

 to be made, and published a digest of them under the title ' De Con- 

 stitutionibus et Immunitatibus almae Uuiversitatis Paduae.' In the 

 same year he published a treatise on the duties of the magisterial 

 office, entitled ' De Perfecto Senatore syntagma.' 



The reputation which he carried back with him into his native 

 country obtained for him speedy preferment. Sigismund Augustus, 

 then king, after admitting the young scholar to several private inter- 

 views, placed him under the direction of the chancellor, in order that 

 he might be instructed in the practical details of public business. 

 About 1569 he was employed to arrange the documents in the public 

 archives, which had fallen iuto great confusion after the departure of 

 Cromer. This laborious task engrossed his whole time for nearly 

 three years ; but the notes which he made, while deciphering and 

 arranging the ancient manuscripts with a view to the compilation of a 

 catalogue, were afterwards of inestimable service to him in his public 

 career. In 1572 Zamoyski married a daughter of the powerful head 

 of the Osselinski family ; but his wife did not long survive their 

 union, and his father died about the same time. The king, who had 

 not long before bestowed one of the crown domains upon the bereaved 

 husband as a mark of his satisfaction, expressed much sympathy with 

 him, promised to be to him in lieu of a parent, and appointed him 

 starost of Bielsk, an appointment which had been held by his father. 

 But Sigismund did not live long to fulfil his promise, and with his 

 death (7th July 1572) commences the political life of Zamoyski a 

 long and chequered career of more than thirty years. 



The General Diet for the election of a king was not summoned to 

 meet at Warsaw till the commencement of 1573. In the mean time 

 the equestrian order had organised itself with a view to counterbalance 

 the influence of the senate by its union. Zamoyski was by common 

 consent regarded as leader of this confederation. He caused the choice 

 of the Diet to fall upon Henri of Anjou, and his reasons were not 

 devoid of weight. Iwan IV., czar of Moscovy, was his first choice, 

 but that prince having refused to solicit for the crown, on the ground 

 that his election was a matter of more consequence to the Poles than 



