I. Waleryan

I. Waleryan, count, a Polish author, born in the Polish province of White Russia about 1780, died in Edinburgh, Dec. 22, 1855. He entered the Polish civil service at an early age, and while still a young man became head of the ministry of public instruction. In this post he effected many useful reforms. Through his influence the Jews were aided in founding a rabbinical college at Warsaw. He paid special attention to the diffusion of useful literature among the people, and introduced stereotype printing into Poland. On the breaking out of the revolution of 1830 he was sent as one of an embassy to England to advance the Polish cause. Driven into exile, and losing his fortune by the result of the war, he went to London, and for the remainder of his life devoted himself to literature. He published " The Rise, Progress, and Decline of the Reformation in Poland" (2 vols., London, 1839 -'40); " Panslavism and Germanism" (1848); " Lectures on the Religious History of the Slavonian Nations" (Edinburgh, 1851); and " Montenegro and the Slavonians in Turkey " (1853).

II. Zygmunt Napoleon

II. Zygmunt Napoleon, count, a Polish author, descended from a branch of the same family with the preceding, born in Paris, Feb. 19, 1812, died there, Feb. 24, 1859. He was the son of Count Wyncenty Krasinski, who succeeded Poniatowski in the command of Napoleon's Polish cavalry, and afterward entered the service of Russia. Here the favor which the court extended to him would have been continued to his son, had not young Krasinski, indignant at the treatment of his Polish countrymen, and warmly espousing their cause, refused all offers of advancement in the Russian service, and left the country soon after attaining his majority. From this time he led a somewhat wandering life, residing successively in several European capitals, and devoting himself to literary pursuits, at first publishing anonymously, and afterward under his own name. His principal works, nearly all of which were inspired by strong patriotic feeling, and were undertaken in the interest of the Polish cause, are: Nieboska komedya ("The Undivine Comedy," in three parts, Paris, 1837-48); Irydion, an imaginative poem in German on the sufferings and future of the Slavic race (Berlin, 1845); Noc letnia (" The Summer Night"), Pokusa ("The Temptation "), a collection of lyrics under the title Przedswit ("Before Dawn"), and Psalmy przysztosci ("Psalms of the Future," 5th ed., Paris, 1861). An edition of Krasinski's collected works appeared at Leipsic (3 vols., 1863), as one of the series called Biblioteka pisarzy polskich (" Library of Polish Authors "). Owen Meredith's " Fool of Time" is confessedly founded upon Krasinski's Nieboska komedya; and the question whether the English poet was entirely justified in the use made of the material has given rise to some discussion.

Besides French and German translations, an English rendering of the Komedya, made through a German version, was published by Mrs. Martha Walker Cook in the "Continental Magazine" (New York, 1864).