who wish to understand fully and appreciate rightly the poet-
musician and his works. But while taking note of what is of
national origin in Chopin's music, we must be careful not to
ascribe to this origin too much. Indeed, the fact that the
personal individuality of Chopin is as markedly differentiated,
as exclusively self-contained, as the national individuality of
Poland, is oftener overlooked than the master's national descent
and its significance with regard to his artistic production. And
now, having made the reader acquainted with the raison d'etre of
this proem, I shall plunge without further preliminaries in
medias res.

The palmy days of Poland came to an end soon after the extinction
of the dynasty of the Jagellons in 1572. So early as 1661 King
John Casimir warned the nobles, whose insubordination and want of
solidity, whose love of outside glitter and tumult, he deplored,
that, unless they remedied the existing evils, reformed their
pretended free elections, and renounced their personal
privileges, the noble kingdom would become the prey of other
nations. Nor was this the first warning. The Jesuit Peter Skarga
(1536--1612), an indefatigable denunciator of the vices of the
ruling classes, told them in 1605 that their dissensions would
bring them under the yoke of those who hated them, deprive them
of king and country, drive them into exile, and make them
despised by those who formerly feared and respected them. But
these warnings remained unheeded, and the prophecies were
fulfilled to the letter. Elective kingship, pacta conventa,
[Footnote: Terms which a candidate for the throne had to
subscribe on his election. They were of course dictated by the
electors--i.e., by the selfish interest of one class, the