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Art. IV. Thaddeus of Warsaw. By Miss Porter. 12mo. 4 vols. about 220 pages each.
The high spirit of patriotism which animates the bosom of Thaddeus, could not have been more opportunely displayed than at this moment, when the alarm is revived of a meditated invasion from the most implacable and unmerciful of foes. Historical truth is in these pages made the handmaid of fiction: Miss Porter, desirous of pourtraying a character, which prosperity cannot intoxicate nor adversity depress, has chosen magnanimity as the subject of her story. Nowhere have the reverses of fortune given more ample scope for the display of this virtue than in Poland, whose unassisted sons struggled valiantly for her independence, and were afterwards doomed to grace the victorious car of their barbarian conquerors. Miss Porter has introduced some of the leading characters and events in the last hapless efforts of that ill-fated country: he who can read the exploits of a Kosciusko and a Sobieski, without feeling his bosom warmed with the generous emotions of patriotism, would hear the beat to arms in defence of his own shores with a cold and insensible heart.
We cannot for one instant doubt but that our resistance will be more successful, and that France will lead her ineffectual hordes to disgrace, discomfiture, and death; but in order to give additional vigour and effect to that resistance, let the massacres at Ismael and Prague be present to our recollection. The blood-stained hero of those scenes, indeed, is gone to answer for his guilt; but there is a living likeness left behind him, who would revive those scenes in all their horror: should his foot reach England,
'The thirsty entrants of this soil,
Would daub her lips with her own children's blood.'
Far is it from us to insult the misfortunes of a fallen man, but we cannot think the unhappy Stanislaus deserves all the encomium which Miss Porter bestows on his character: his intentions were benevolent, and he wished to save the lives of his subjects. But through age, probably, and infirmity, his mind had lost its vigour at that momentous crisis, when more than its pristine vigor was demanded. When at a council of deputies he laid before them the dispatches of the empress, and determined [605] to surrender at discretion, she hould [sic] have put himself at the head of his army, he should have recalled to memory the unconquerable valour of La Valette, and he would have found that the nobles of Poland could emulate in intrepidity and persevering courage, the brave knights of Malta: perhaps Suwarrow and Brinicky might have retired abashed, like Mustapha, and Hassem, bearing back to Catherine, as these did to Solyman, the ghost of a departed army!
In Vol. II. p. 191, Miss Porter has unaccountably attributed Ambrose Phillips's translation of Sappho's celebrated ode, to Mr Addison. [complete]
Provided by Julie A. Shaffer, January 2000
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