'With respect to the manners and disposition of this nation, the Poles, though they are naturally haughty and imperious, are yet sufficiently qualified to return any polite treatment they receive, and if a stranger only tenders them the first civilities, and is sedulous to cultivate their friendship, their behavour will always correspond with his advances, and they will be industrious to render him all the good offices imaginable.
' Magnificence is the foible of the nobility, and they sacrifice all things to scenes of luxury. As they seldom behold any person superior to themselves in their own country, and as they treat their inferiors with an air of absolute authority, they live in all the splendour of princes, while fortune proves favourable to their inclinations. Prodigality and debauch are considered as virtues by a martial nobility, who are frequently precipitated into extremes by independence and impunity. Arms are their only occupation, they discover but little curiosity to cultivate the polite arts, and commerce is transacted among them by none but strangers. In a word, the Poles are only solicitous to distinguish themselves in war, to defend their frontiers, and to be vigilant over the conduct of their kings, since they think it degrading to indulge themselves in any other occupations. As an air of sincerity is diffused through all their conduct their friendships are constant, but they are easily rendered the dupes of their enemies. As they are very disinterested in their desires they seldom amass great riches, and frequently dissipate their patrimony. If they are at any time reduced to a melancholy state of indigence they borrow without any intention of making a proper restitution, and they think themselves privileged to dispose of the property of others with the same prodigality in which they waste their own. They appear serene and undisturbed amidst the greatest calamities, and behold the miseries of their friends and countrymen, and nearest relations, with an aspect of indifference equal to the insensibility with which they support their own misfortunes. They are naturally couragous and intrepid, and habituate themselves to all sorts of fatigue, and would indeed be invincible if they paid a due respect to their chiefs. This is the general character of the Poles, whose history I have undertaken to write.'
The history by the Abbs' des Fontaines, brings us down to 1733, and tells of endless revolutions; later history tells of partitions of the kingdom.
In an article in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia it is stated: —
' The Crown of Poland, with the exception of five centuries previous to the year 1370, was purely elective. Its sovereigns, whose authority before the era just mentioned was unlimited and absolute, were originally termed
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