POLISH HISTORY. 71 



how to command and execute at the same time. He 

 appeared magnificently in public, and whenever it was 

 requisite of him to assume the air of a great prince ; his 

 more private conduct was softened with an air of affability ; 

 and he saw himself respected and beloved by his 

 people, whom he treated more as a father than as a 

 Sovereign. His renown was so great that Otho the Third 

 came into Poland, as well to offer him his alliance, as to 

 accomplish a vow he had made to the martyr, St. Alder- 

 bert, or Albert, Archbishop of Gnesna. The Emperor 

 was so well satisfied with his reception, and likewise with 

 the magnificence of Boleflaus, that he thought it incum- 

 bent on him to testify his acknowledgments to him by 

 some honourable return that might correspond with the 

 treatment he had received in the territories of this 

 prince. He accordingly crowned him King of Poland, 

 and gave him the imperial eagle, in a field gules, for his 

 arms. The two princes afterwards confirmed their new 

 alliance by the marriage of "Rixa, or Riche, daughter of 

 Godfrey, Count Palatine of the Rhine, and niece of the 

 Emperor, with Miecflaus, the son of Boleflaus.' 



In subsequent times, under the provision for an elective 

 monarchy, Russia, and France, and England, all of them, 

 as well as other lands, furnished statesmen nominated as 

 candidates for the throne England in the person of Sir 

 Philip Sydney, France in that of Henry of Vallois. 



Of the political constitution of Poland in the early part 

 of the last century, the Abbs' writes : 



' The kingdom of Poland is composed of Poland properly 

 so called, which is divided into the Upper and Lower 

 Poland, Royal Prussia, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and 

 the provinces of Mazovia, Polachia, Black Russia, Volhinia, 

 Podolia, the Ukraine, and some other small provinces. 

 The Baltic Sea, Samogitia, Livonia, and Muscovy consti- 

 tute its northern bounds. The dominions of the Russian 

 monarch and Little Tartary form its frontiers to the east. 



