The
tendency of all his historical investigations, even when apparently
without any such design, has been since the very beginning of the
Russian dominion to undermine their power; and the great ability with
which he contrived to veil hints, to disguise remarks, and to follow
out under a harmless mask a certain and fixed purpose, had earned him
twenty or thirty years ago the name of the "Jesuit of history."
It remains now to give a general survey of the progress of Polish
_belles-lettres_ during the last twenty years; and also of those mixed
publications which excite a general interest. Here we must not omit to
mention Witwicki's the "Evening Hours of a Pilgrim," [83] a book
which, in a sprightly style and a peculiarly interesting way, gives a
good deal of information as to the literary and mental condition of
Poland, and the much-lauded revival of letters during the reign of
Stanislaus Poniatowski.
But perhaps the most interesting production of this period is Adam
Mickiewicz's course of Lectures on Slavic literature and the condition
of the Slavic nations, delivered in French at Paris, where he had
found employment as a professor in the College de France.[84] The deep
enthusiasm which pervades these lectures, the mental excitement by
which they would seem to have been dictated from beginning to end,
forbid us to consider them in the ordinary light of a mere course of
instruction on the subject to which they relate.
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