He died at Soleure, in the house of a friend, Mr. Zeltner, in consequence of a fall from his horse while taking a solitary ride. He was buried there with every demonstration of respect in the power of the simple inhabitants to bestow. But the Emperor Alexander, on hearing of the event, would not allow remains so honorable to be divided from the land of their birth; and such high and sincere homage to the undaunted heroism and universally acknowledged integrity of the lamented dead found no difficulty in obtaining the distinguishing object sought, that of transferring his virtue- consecrated relics to the shrine of ancient Christian Poland, the city of Cracow, and there reinterring them in the great royal cemetery of the most revered patriots of the kingdom.
Years rolled on over the head and heart of the patriot and the bard, Niemcivitz, the ever "faithful Achates" of his friend and his country, even after, to his bereaved heart, he had survived both. He had also become a widower. His gentle and delicate wife went to revisit her native climate in the United States, but died there. On his return thence to Europe, the consolations of a fraternal friendship, in the bosoms of his noble countrymen, who had become adopted denizens of free and happy England, vainly sought to retain him with them. Sorrow in a breast of his temperament cannot find rest in any place. His shining locks, once likened to those of Hyperion, became frosted by an age of wandering as well as of sadness; and the till then joyous and ever-tender heart of the sweetest poet of Sclavonian birth breathed its last sigh in Paris, in the summer of 1841. It was on the first of June; and on the eighth of the month he was buried with military honors and all the distinguishing rites of the national church. The funeral service was performed by the Archbishop of Chalcidonia, with a large body of the clergy attending. A choir of fifty professors sung the mass, and more than a thousand persons thronged the procession—persons of all nations, of all creeds, religious or political, of every rank amongst men, of every mind, from the prince to the peasant, that understood the true value of genius when helmed by virtue, either on the land or on the wave; whether in the field or in the cabinet; in the student's closet, or in the duties of domestic home.
Such a man was Niemcivitz. So was he wept; so will he be remembered, proving, indeed, most convincingly, that there is a standard set up in men's hearts, if they would but look to it, which, whatever be their minor clashing opinions, shows that the truly great and good in this earth are all of one family in the estimation of pure intellect, the spiritual organ of all just estimation, which is, in fact, that of the kingdom of heaven—that kingdom which, if its laws to man were properly preserved and obeyed, would spread the shepherds' promised "peace and good-will to all mankind." But men may listen, approve, and admire, and yet withhold obedience. But why will the heirs of such a covenant, with sight and hearing, die from its inheritance?
Kosciusko and Niemcivitz were real appreciators of so rich a birthright in "the better country!" and now are gone to Him who purchased it by His most precious blood, to enter with Him forever into its peaceful and glorious rest.