12 



they promised him the vacant throne, at the same time 

 directing him to open his doors and draw for the relief of 

 the famished population. He did so, and found his cask 

 inexhaustible. The assembled crowds, in their trans- 

 ports, shouted, A miracle ! and with one consent elevated 

 their benefactor to the sovereignty of Poland. 



From this period the history, both of prince and people, 

 became the subject of authentic narrative. Piastus, like 

 another Numa, retained in his elevation the virtues 

 attributed to him in his private life. The Polish nobles, 

 although accustomed to sanguinary catastrophes, felt their 

 fierceness subside beneath the sway of a monarch who 

 reigned only to make his people happy. He died at an 

 advanced age, beloved, revered, and almost adored by his 

 subjects; and, after the lapse of nearly a thousand years, 

 the name of Piastus is yet repeated with affectionate 

 veneration. 



Such is the brief biographical memoranda, which it is 

 possible to rescue from oblivion, concerning the remote 

 ancestry of Margaret of Silesia. She came with great 

 pomp and splendour to the shores of England, and curious 

 has it been to see, while the stream of time flowed on, 

 how some of the noble of the earth, her immediate de- 

 scendants, were upborn upon its billows ; how, in one case, 

 knights and squires represented an elder branch, sober 

 citizens a younger, and how, in a third, the lordly line 

 sunk suddenly beneath the billows. 



When the battle of Teuton, in the year 1460, made it 



