THE WITCHES' CAULDRON. D Sir Urean is sitting aloft in the air; Hey over stock and hey over stone! "Twixt witches and incubi what shall be done? 'There is a true witch element about us; HE Tzar will reinstate Poland; Napoleon will occupy Greece; England will appoint a new King of Prussia; and Austria will ally with the West; the Bulgarians and the Serbes will be organized by English officers for Turkey; the Western Powers will protect the Turkish Christians; Austria will pacify the Adriatic tribes; and Italy, Hungary, and Poland will be kept down; England and France will garrison Constantinople till the Tzar is ready to take possession; and 100,000 men will manoeuvre in the neighbourhood of Boulogne preparatory to coöperation with England. So Rumour writes of the probable policies of the coming Turkish-Russian-French-EnglishGreek-Austrian-Prussian-Polish-Hungarian-Italian-Swedish-suppose we say for the sake of brevity-European war. The Tzar will reinstate Poland to punish Austria and Prussia if they join the Western Powers. He will establish a kingdom of Poland, with the old Muscovite minister, Adam Czartoryski, for his viceroy! A kingdom of Poland which would be all Poland a Russian province. And Russia so striding toward the Panslavonian throne. The old women at the head of English affairs may put that combination in their cauldron. Napoleon will occupy Greece. Only say how long. And Italy too, and make the Mediterranean a French lake! Doubtless giving Candia and Egypt to the English. For the very reason why France might desire a preponderance in the East would be of course to help England into India. But England will also occupy Greece-with fewer men. French politeness will not mind that. A constitutional King of Prussia will make the witches' broth quite prime. Of course we could not take Posen from a constitutional king; and, if the Tzar did, we could make our constitutional ally Emperor of Germany, as amends. And what then would become of our imperial Austrian ally? "Twixt witches and incubi.' How that Poland spoils all-partitioned or not partitioned, and the Austrian Empire anyway shredded into the cauldron. Ask old Metternich to taste our broth. The Greeks dare too to offer their contribution. But Greece is occupied. And we arm Bulgarians, Moldavians, Wallachs, and Serbes, as good Christians in defence of Turkey. And Bulgarians, Moldavians, and Wallachs dream of a Roumanian independence which their English organizers are not dreaming of, and the Serbes too are Slavonians. Capital cookery! Why, how now? Hecate! you look angrily.' Can we do better for the protection of the Turkish Christians than by putting arms in their hands, when they no doubt will also protect their Mussulman protectors? We put no arms in Polish hands, and confiscate those consigned to Greek patriots; and Austria keeps down the Christians of the Turkish West. If things don't go quite smoothly, we shall arm Poles too; send a legion aristocratically officered against Russia, with strict orders not to cross the frontiers of our allies-into Posen or Gallicia. But supposing-'twixt witches and incubi'-Poland, Italy, Hungary, Roumania, Greece, kept down; Napoleon, as aforesaid, occupying the Mediterranean provinces, his Zouaves also garrisoning Constantinople, and our 92d Highlanders retaining Gallipoli as a material guarantee: then we can make the Tzar hear reason. Hey! there's a Russian-Polish crown dropped again into the broth and the flavour spoiled. Our cookery will never be perfection. Not so far off either. We had quite forgotton that little camp on the old field of Azincourt, so near to Boulogne, where now 100,000 Gauls are embarking with not the slightest intention of landing at Folkstone. Have those weird women, the diplomatists, really a receipt for their devil's broth? or is all-what comes handiest? Do Nicholas and Napoleon understand each other? And the galvanized corpses of Austria and Turkey that look so much like life that we need only to ask one to help us to back up the other. Was ever witches' cauldron fuller of damnabler uncombining ingredients than the avowed policies of the statesmen of enlightened Europe? 'Round about the cauldron go! Well, Wise-man! what do you prescribe? O nothing at all, only just to throw Poland out of Europe (out of the map is not enough), to lay the revolutionary spirit, to reinvigorate the dying and long-damned, to make Nicholas honest and unambitious, and to teach Aberdeen to be up to Napoleon the 3d. Then it will be a pleasant occupation for some dandy statesman, when Turkey is finely bolstered up, to carry his red tape to Vienna and tie round the treaty between the Tzar and the Wise Men of the West. There is no denying it: these imperial and royal interests-Holstein-Gottorp, Hohenzollern, Habsburg, Bourbon, Coburg, and Beauharnais-are very hard to arrange. And so much in Europe depending on their arrangements. And then the peoples. You see if we were to free--that is, really to freeonly one, even to let only one get really free, the example would be so contagious. The freedom of one people means absolutely the freedom of all in a very short time and that means universal popular sovereignty,-which means neither kings nor kingly representatives,-which means national interests cared for instead of private interests,-which means equal justice in place of rascally imperialism, and peace and prosperity instead of war-taxes,—and a Republican Europe, in truth a Christian Europe, the Millennium all too soon. Very inconvenient any sort of Millennium would be to the Gottorps and the Coburgs and the Beauharnais : not to be thought of by any one worthy to be called a statesman. And so again 'round about the cauldron'! O, old women! old women! Would you not like a broomstick ?' TO THE RUSSIAN SOLDIERS IN POLAND. (From the Russian Republicans in Exile.) BROTHERS,-At last the Tzar has managed to call down war upon Russia. His colleagues, dreading their peoples more than any other enemy, have vainly shuffled back and made concessions. He has succeeded in provoking a contest. He has had no ruth for Russian blood.. But we, Russians and Poles, exiles in the land of the stranger, shed tears at the recital of these exorbitant levies, of these heavy surcharges imposed upon the people, of our soldiers hurried by thousands to an useless death. To die for a just cause is noble. It is for this that man's heart contains courage, hardihood, devotion, love. But to perish without serving one's fellows for a Tzar's caprice: that is indeed pitiful. The whole world compassionates the Turks-not from sympathy with them, but because their cause is just. They are attacked, and they have indeed the right of self-defence. And our poor soldiers? They shed their blood in torrents, fight valiantly, heap the ground with their dead bodies, and no man, save us, laments their fate, no one appreciates their bravery. The Tzar says that he is defending the Orthodox Church. But it is not attacked; and, if the Sultan has oppressed it, why then has the Tzar kept silence since 1828 ? The lot of the Christians, adds the Tzar, is hard in Turkey. We have never heard that the Christians in Turkey are more oppressed than the peasants are with us, especially those who, by the Tzar's command, are given in bondage to the nobles. Would it not be better to begin by freeing the slaves at home? these, too, are orthodox, and, what is more, they are Russians! No: the Tzar defends no cause; he has no good object in view. He is solely guided by his pride, and it is for that pride that he sacrifices your blood. Yours, we say; not his own. He is too chary of that.- Have you ever seen him in front of your ranks? Not on parade-grounds, but-on fields of battle? It is he who has begun the war: may it then fall solely on his own head! May it set a limit to our sad state of stagnation! After 1812 came the 26th of December." What will come after 1854 ? Shall we, then, be so slothful as to let escape such an opportunity as will not return for long? Shall we not care to profit by the storm called down by the Tzar upon himself. We hope, we have faith. Look at Poland. Hardly had the news of war reached her, when already she raised her head again. She awaits but the first opportunity to reclaim her rights, her freedom. What will you do when the Polish people shall fly to arms? Your lot is worst of all. Your comrades in Turkey are soldiers; and will you, who are in Poland, be merely executioners? Your victories will cover you with shame; you will have to blush for your courage. The blood of kindred is washed out with difficulty. Beware of again deserving the name of Cain. It might cling to you for ever. We know well that it would not be from your own will if you were to march against the Poles. But it is time you should have a will of your own! Do you think it easy, then, to constrain the will of thousands in arms, who understand one another? One day, we do not remember in what province, when the new administration of the crown domains was introduced, some peasants revolted. (It was the case in nearly all the provinces.) Troops were sent for; the peasants did not disperse. The general ordered his men to load; the soldiers executed this order, supposing it to have been merely given for frightening the insurgents. But the people were not intimidated. Then the general gave the colonel the signal to fire. The latter gave the word of command; the soldiers presented, but-did not pull their triggers. Amazed, the general dashed up and himself cricd-Fire! The soldiers grounded their arms, and remained motionless. Well, what think you was done to these soldiers? Absolutely nothing! The commanding officers were so afraid of the business that they passed it over in silence. That is an example of what you may do. But abstaining is not all. The hour is come to range yourselves on the side of the poor Russian people, as the Polish army did for its own in 1831. We are approaching a mighty period. Let it not be said that in so solemn, so terrible a moment, you were left without brotherly advice. We forewarn you of the danger that threatens you. We wish to preserve you from a crime. Have confidence in us. It is the Russia of the future that speaks to you through us. Russia free and young, condemned to silence in its native land, but whose voice resounds in exile the Russia of martyrs, of mines, of Siberia, and of casemates-the Pestel's insurrection. Russia of the Pestels and Mouravieff's, of the Ryleïeff's and Bestoujeffs-that Russia of which we are the heralds, the speaking-trumpets to the world. We are your wail of grief, your cry of hatred, your appeal for vengeance on your oppressors.We denounce to the world the murky crimes of your Government; we are its living reproach; we stigmatize it; we brand it with the hot iron, as it brands living men. If our speech is harsh and biting, it is because it is the echo of the lamentations of violated women, the death-rattle of old men dying under the lash, the clank of chains borne by our poets, our best friends, when transported to Siberia. In the land of the stranger we have commenced an open struggle by words while waiting one by deeds. Our words are an appeal; our voice is the distant sound of the bell announcing that the matins for the grand festival of the Resurrection of the Peoples have commenced also for the Russian nation. This voice will not cease to resound until it shall be changed into a tocsin or a hymn of triumph. Far as we are from you, we are your nearest kin, your brothers, your only friends. We have reconciled the Russian people with the peoples of the West, who were apt to confound us with the Petersburg Government. The Poles have stretched out their hands to us in our quality of Russians. Such is also the sense of the words that we have addressed to them; such is the meaning of our alliance with them. They have appreciated our love for the Russian people. On your side, understand it too, and love the Poles, because they are Poles. What do the Poles desire ? An independent Poland that shall be free to confederate with Russia emancipated from autocracy, without letting herself be absorbed by her. Federal unity is perhaps that which is most opposed to the uniformity of a despotic centralization. The actual annexation of Poland to Russia is an absurdity, a fact of brutal violence. After three and twenty years of persecutions, the Government dares not remove one single regiment in all Poland without sending another to replace it. These forced unions do but perpetuate hatred, and time does nothing for them. Is Hungary or Lombardy Austrian ?-and is even Finland Russian ? It is only the Baltic provinces that find the Holstein-Mongol government of Petersburg to their taste, and who arm from devotion their children in defence of the Greek Orthodox Church-with Luther's Bible in their pockets. If we Russians will not comprehend the necessity of Poland's restoration, Poland will not the less separate herself from Russia, or rather she will be severed from Russia by others. And then she will become, not independent, but a stranger to us. The question between Poland and Russia is a family question. No foreign intervention. We ought to solve it ourselves; and that without arms. It is not the Russian people whom you defend in Poland. The Russian people, in the very first hour of its awakening, will deny you, and will curse |