Instead ofconcentrating attention here, Poland committed the twofold mistake of weakeningher hold upon this region by accepting, as far back as 1563, the Union of Brandenburgwith East Prussia, which was bound to make for instability, and by forming theunfortunate Union of Lublin(with Lithuania) in 1569, which, in spite of certainadvantages, forced her beyond her ethnological limits and committed her to apolicy of expansion south and south-eastwards to the Black Sea. Henceforward Polandwas distracted between interests in the Baltic and the Black Sea. The task wastoo big for her. She failed to assimilate Ruthenia and the Ukraine., or thepopulate them with sufficient Poles to withstand Russian pressure, while at thesame time her colonizing efforts here tended to cause a serious decrease of populationin Poland, which had a disastrous effect upon the commercial and political historyof the whole country. The Union of Lublin in fact hindered the centralizationof Poland at the very time when neighbouring states were developing theirarmies and centralizing their governments.
波兰并没有将注意力放在本土，与之相反的是波兰不断地进行着双重的错误，先是可追溯至1563年的允许勃兰登堡与东普鲁士的联合，而这势必会带来不稳定，再是不幸的1569年的卢布林合约（与立陶宛），这尽管带来了一定的优势，但是迫使波兰远离她的民族边界并使得她采用了向南方和东南方直到黑海的扩张政策。从此以后波兰的精力被波罗的海和黑海的利益所分散。这任务对她来说太艰巨了。她没能消化鲁塞尼亚和乌克兰，或是安置足够多的波兰人以应付俄罗斯人的压力，与此同时她在这里的殖民努力往往造成这里波兰人口的减少，这对整个国家的商业和政治历史产生了灾难性的影响。实际上卢布林合约在这个关键的时期当波兰的邻国建设军队并加强中央政府时妨碍了波兰权力的集中。

（4） Societyin Poland was badly balanced. In the country all power lay in the hands of thenobles, in the towns in the hands of the Jews.
The nobleswere a personal caste, nobility consisting of privileges of birth apart fromwealth or property. They were more independent and more numerous in Poland thananywhere else in Europe. In the seventeenth century, for example, they numbered800,000 out of a population of some ten millions, i.e. 8 per cent.(as comparedwith 1 per cent in France) They were divided into three categories: magnates,the middle or landed gentry, and the rank and file of the nobles, calledszlachta. Power wavered from one group to another, but the nobles as a mass hadlittle idea of governing and were consistent only in securing their ownclass-interests. It was an unfortunate accident that throughout the sixteenth,seventeenth and first half of the eighteenth centuries there were remarkablyfew distinguished individuals to help the king and an orderly government. Atthe end of the period the great nobles on the Polish frontiers possessed analmost international position and by their financial and traditional controlover the szlachta were able to interfere disastrously in Polish history.
（4）波兰的社会严重不平衡。在农村所有权力掌握在贵族手中，在城镇掌握在犹太人手中。
贵族是一个个人世袭的等级，贵族与生俱来的除了财富或财产外还有一系列特权。波兰贵族还比欧洲其他地方的贵族要更独立且更庞大。例如在17世纪，他们在一千万人口中有八十万人，占了百分之八（与之相比法国大约占百分之一）。他们被分为三类：权贵、中等或是土地士绅、以及位于贵族等级的施拉赫塔。权力在不同群体之间摇摆，但贵族作为一个群体没有多少执政理念而只是在只关心保护自己利益方面保持一致。这是不幸的，在16世纪、17世纪和18世纪的前半个世纪都很少有杰出的个人来帮助国王并整顿政府。在这一时期结束时波兰边境的大贵族们几乎拥有国际地位并且由于他们对施拉赫塔在财政和传统上的控制使得他们在这一波兰历史上的灾难中扮演重要角色。

（5） Politicalprinciples were in advance of the times and were often antagonistic to thewhole trend of contemporary and practice. Moreover they were not genuineprinciples. Poland’s republican tendencies were purely nominal; in reality shewas a turbulent oligarchy. And at the same time they were unsound, being basedon the assumption that liberty and equality were correlative. In practicePolish liberty meant licence.
（5）政治原则是随时间变化而变化的，并且常常与当代的和实践的整体趋势相对立。此外，他们不是真正的原则。波兰的共和倾向只是名义上的；实际上她是动荡的寡头政治。同时他们是不健全的，是基于自由与平等相关这样一个假设。在实践中波兰的自由意味着特许。

Period Four 1772-1815
First Partition,1772
The first partition of Poland putinto the form of a treaty between Russia, Prussia and Austria a state ofaffairs which practically had existed for some time. Since 1768 Russia had beenin military occupation of more than half Poland. Austrian troops had long beenpenetrating Galicia. Frederick the Great had gradually extended his militarycordons round the Polish districts in the north.
第四时期1772-1815
第一次瓜分，1772
在波兰以条约的形式被俄罗斯、普鲁士和奥地利瓜分之前，其被瓜分的状况已经存在了一段时间。自1768年起俄罗斯一直军事占领着大半波兰。奥地利军队渗透进了加利西亚。腓特烈大帝逐渐扩展他在波兰北部的军事界线。