LET ENGLAND REMEMBER! Air-Let Erin remember! LET England remember the days of yore, The days of Naseby and Marston-Moor, Let England think of the men of old, Of Eliot brave and Hampden bold, And Cromwell, England's glory: When England's strength was a righteous sword, Is England's heart grown senseless now? Or does she repent of the hero vow Of the men of the days of glory? That the Commonweal is a fearful word To the slaves that are trampling on her; May England retrieve her hero name, And, true to the pledge of her youthful fame, Let her sons advance in the teeth of Time, Where their rights or the world's may lead 'em, In the track once mark'd by a faith sublime In God and in human freedom. W. J. L. THE leader of the wretched Galician peasants, to whom the Austrian Minister, METTERNICH, intrusted, in February and March, 1846, the atrocious mission of murdering all of the Polish land-owners who were suspected of patriotism, was SZELA, a monster who had been condemned to imprisonment for setting fire to his father's house and for a horrible crime against a child. He was set at liberty to head some other liberated convicts and disguised soldiers, to excite the peasants against their masters, by false tales, and by promises (guaranteed by the 'Government') of so much a head for every Polish proprietor. A higher price was paid if he was brought in dead. Theodore had his Theodore and John Bromiski were butchered in their own houses. ribs, arms and legs broken, and was afterwards killed with flails. John had his ears and nose cut off, and his head skinned. His wife was forced to light the ruffians while they tore out his eyes. Charles Kotarski, often mentioned in the journals as the benefactor of the countrypeople, had his jaw-bones removed before they killed him. Sokulski was thrown into a trough, and minced there as food for pigs. Mrs. Kempinska-born Countess Dembicka-pregnant with twins, was killed with a dungfork. The twins were torn out of the corpse, to get the Government' price for each head. The foregoing are taken from an incomplete list (bearing 1484 names) of the Polish gentry massacred in Galicia, in 1846, to uphold the Austrian Monarchy. Not one Court in Europe protested against the massacres, not one royal or diplomatic person withdrew from companionship with the Murderers. And this is but one page out of the detestable Book of Kings. Beneath yon unhewn stone, o'er-writ with slime Of loathliest vermin, who crawl there to die,- OUR MARTYRS. I-SIMON KONARSKI. IMON KONARSKI, a Protestant gentleman, born in Poland, was twenty-two years of age at the breaking out of the last Polish revolution. In that ล holy war he served first as an ensign; but his bravery and military talents soon obtained for him the rank of captain and the cross of honour. After sharing in all the most important battles of that ever glorious campaign, he when compelled, in common with the thousands of his countrymen, to emigrate, took refuge in France. But his soul was too ardent, his need of action too imperious to allow him to remain at rest. In 1833, under a fictitious name, and disguised as a clock-maker, he with thirty-nine of his fellow exiles penetrated through Germany, to Poland, with the intention of stirring up a guerilla warfare as the prelude to another national insurrection. This enterprize failed. Most of those who took part in it fell into the hands of the enemy, and were shot, or hanged, or buried in the mines of Siberia or the Austrian dungeons of Kufstein. Konarski had the remarkably good fortune to escape the indefatigable pursuits of the Russian government, in spite of clouds of spies, innumerable hordes of Cossacks, large detachments of the regular army, and even the population of whole villages turned out to get hold of the emigrants. For months the forests were his only shelter, often not knowing how to clothe himself or appease his hunger. Once he owed his safety to a Russian Officer, who called out the Under the leadership of Zalivski. Twenty-nine of them perished in the expedition. Few of them, when they started on this journey of a thousand miles, possessed more than forty shillings each. Most were without passports. master of the house in which Konarski was concealed, and conjured him to care for his friend's safety, as in a few hours his house was to be rigorously searched. In vain the landlord protested that he had no stranger concealed; the officer repeated his advice, adding the mysterious words-'I am one of the followers of Mouraviëff: you understand me; save your friend!' It need hardly be said the search was unsuccessful. At last, at Prussian-Eylau, when he thought himself out of all danger, his ignorance of the technicalities of clock-making awakened the suspicions of the local police; but they only sent him to Dantzic and put him on shipboard for Antwerp. Mazzini and the Italian patriots were then organizing the expedition into Savoy; and Konarski, quitting Belgium without a passport, hastened to join their standard. Again unsuccessful: but failures could not dishearten him. His holy zeal seemed to be inflamed with new ardour at every obstacle; his courage grew with the danger. He immediately considered of fresh endeavours; and to secure himself against the recurrence of such a dilemma as that at Prussian-Eylau, he set himself seriously to learn, as an ordinary workman, one of the branches of clock-making: so preparing himself for the apostolic mission for which he was destined. As a member of the association of Young Poland, which confided to him a most important duty, he proceeded, in 1835, by London, to Cracow, in order to confer with the coreligionists there; and thence, toward the end of the same year, he passed into Russian Poland, traversing, under a variety of disguises, with death ever at his side, Volhynia, Podolia, Lithuania,-in a word, all the Polish provinces subjected to the Muscovite knout. His activity was wonderful: everywhere he spread the writings containing the Gospel of the future and the sacred promises of the faith of which he was the apostle; everywhere he organized subscriptions for the national work; everywhere he knew how, by the fire of his eloquence, to kindle the most apathetic souls. At his voice the believers crowded from far and near; the youth of the Universities of Kiew and Wilna entered into the new holyalliance, and placed in his hands their solemn oath to undertake everything, to dare and to endure, for the salvation of their unhappy country. At his appeal the magnanimous Polish mothers taught their nurslings the love of liberty and of their country, and inextinguishable hatred of the foreign tyranny. Full of an audacity that despised the dread of death, he penetrated to the very ranks of the Russian army, and even there, in that seemingly sterile soil, so irresistible is the admirable power of a real enthusiasm, he saw the seed which he sowed take root and germinate. If the experience of passed ages is not an illusion, from this grain we shall see arise the beneficent growth of liberty for the slave people of Russia. It is remarkable, as an indication of the spirit which even now animates the Russian army, that among the numbers of soldiers whom Konarski admitted to his confidence, not one betrayed him. Even the consummate spy-system of Russia failed against him, for it had to cope with a man uniting never-failing coolness and presence of mind with a genius always fertile in resources. For b One of the Russian Republican Martyrs. three years he baffled the most skilful of the numbers who continually dogged him, till at last in May 1838, in the neighbourhood of Wilna, he was denounced by a German who had overheard his conversation, and arrested. Conveyed to Wilna, the Governor, before whom he was brought, had the baseness to strike him. Konarski had strength enough to heave up his ponderous fetters and smite his cowardly assailant. For nine months the hero languished in a Russian prison, detained so long in the vain hope of extorting confessions from him, to implicate his friends. All he endured during this terrible period was never known; it was ascertained however, that when found to be mute under the lash, he was fed on salt provisions, and tempted to speak, in the fever of burning thirst, by having liquids placed before him. He was deprived of sleep. Incisions were made in his back, and melted sealing wax dropped in, drop by drop; then spirits of wine poured in and set fire to. In vain. They could draw nothing from him. The Russian governor could not withhold his admiration; called him ' a man of iron.' Two Russian officers successively refused to shoot him. One, a Captain Koravieff, even plotted to set him at liberty; but was discovered. At length sentence of death was passed upon Konarski; that he should be shot. His mother hastened to Wilna to embrace him for the last time. They refused her admittance. Three days before the execution she was brutally driven out of Wilna, The 27th of February, 1839, was a severe winter-day. Konarski, to whom they had only left his summer trousers, intreated the jailer to procure him others. 'My shivering limbs may tremble,' said he, and I would not even seem to fear death.' The jailer could do nothing without authority, and contented himself by assuring him that the way was not long. A few hours before his death Konarski received a visit from a monk. Taking his hand, he said-'My good father! I am sure that God will remit my sins, for I have bitterly expiated them;-I have suffered much both for my Country and Humanity. Though I am a Calvinist, your benediction will be as welcome to me as that of a minister of my own faith. Bless me, then, as thy son, one like thyself a believer in the Cross, and I shall die happy.' The monk wept and blessed him. He had not the heart to try for his 'conversion.' Afterwards a Protestant minister was sent to him. With him he calmly took his tea, and conversed of God and immortality, till he had to mount the sledge, to be carried to the place of execution, beyond the walls. All the streets were densely crowded. Children, strong men, and aged, all were in tears. But he, lifting his fettered arms, cried-'Weep not for my lot, in a little while I shall be free; weep, weep for your own!' Then, turning to the clergyman, he said, 'How many monarchs might envy me a funeral procession, so numerous, and so spontaneous !' His only request was that his eyes might not be bound. And so to the last he looked death in the face, not merely with firmness, but with the assured serenity of one who saw beyond death into the future, and whose unshaken faith prophesied to him of his Country's liberty and certain glory. The Governor died of the consequences of this blow, two years afterwards. |