Among the reflecting statesmen of Poland, in the second decennium of our century, there began to be a great deal of attention bestowed on national economy and its various branches; more especially on studies connected with agriculture, as being the science most applicable to the present wants of the country.  Poland being the most extensive plain in Europe, and for the most part of a very rich and fertile soil, the Poles would seem destined by nature to be an agricultural people.  We cannot but observe here, that from this very circumstance, the wretched state of the labouring classes is placed in a still more striking light.  The interests of agricultural science have been promoted by different societies, and several able treatises on those subjects have been published; although it does not appear that any new theory or principles have been started.  Of all the branches of moral science, political economy has met in Poland with the most disciples.  Valuable statistical works on Poland in the Polish language have been written by Staszyc, honourably mentioned above;[63] by Slawiarski, and others.  Swiencki in his ‘Geography of ancient Poland,’ Surowiecki in his ‘History of the Polish towns and peasantry,’ give very valuable statistical notices; and the ‘Journey to Constantinople and Troy’ by count Raczynski, contains an exact statistical account of Podolia and the Ukraine.

The science of law must ever have been in a melancholy state in a country like Poland.  Poland proper has always been governed by statutes and constitutions, sanctioned by the diet.

These were either founded on ancient usages, consuetudines, or occasioned by particular circumstances.  The towns were governed according to the code of Magdeburg.  In Lithuania the ancient Lithuanian statutes, collected in 1529, prevailed and still prevail, if not in collision with any intervening ukase.[64] In the other provinces, the laws of the respective monarchies to which they are annexed, are in force.  Thus the different portions of Poland are governed in accordance with seven different systems of law.[65] Under the administration of the last king of Poland, which was so rich in improvements; a general code of laws was also planned, and projects were prepared by able statesmen and lawyers; but they were all rejected by the diet of 1777.  Under the Russian administration, preparation was made from the very beginning for the introduction of a new code; but the first project of a criminal code presented by the council of state, was likewise rejected by the diet of 1820.  A portion of the civil code was accepted in A.D. 1825; but the complete code, which was ready for publication in the year 1830, had not, so far as we are informed, been introduced before the outbreak of the revolution.  The administration of justice in Poland is about as bad as in Russia; being nothing but one great system of bribery and corruption.  Of the judges of the lower courts,