age. Poland was the great land of eastern Europe, and owing to the universal toleration encouraged by the government, Protestantism was widely spread. Many of the chief nobility were Calvinists, and the Socini came to reside in the country. All this, however, was to pass away under the great Jesuit reaction. At Rakow in Poland was published the catechism of the Socinian doctrines in 1605. The Jesuits made their appearance in Poland in 1564, and soon succeeded in getting the schools of the country into their hands. Besides extirpating the various sects of Protestants, they also busied themselves with destroying the Greek Church in Lithuania. Latin poetry was cultivated with great success by Clement Janicki (1516-1543), but the earliest poet of repute who wrote in Polish is Rej of Naglowice (1505-1569). After a somewhat idle youth he betook himself to poetry. He was a Protestant, and among other religious works translated the Psalms. His best work was Zwierciadło albo zywot poczciwego człowieka (The Mirror or Life of an Honourable Man)—a somewhat tedious didactic piece. He was also the author of a kind of play—a mystery we may term it, and productions of this sort seem to have been common in Poland from a very early time—entitled Life of Joseph in Egypt. This piece is interesting merely from an antiquarian point of view; there is but little poetry in it. It teems with anachronisms; thus we have mention of the mass and organs, and also of a German servant. Lucas Goinicki (1527-1603) wrote many historical works, and Dworzanin palski, an imitation of the Cartegiano of Castiglione.
Jan Kochanowski[1] (1530-1584), called the prince of Polish poets, came of a poetical family, having a brother, a cousin Kochanowski. and a nephew who all enriched the literature of their country with some productions. Kochanowski studied for some time at the university of Padua, and also resided in Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Ronsard. Returning to Poland, he became in 1564 secretary to Sigismund Augustus. He has left The Game of Chess, an imitation of Vida, and Proporzec albo hold pruski (The Standard or Investiture of Prussia), where he describes the fealty done by Albert of Brandenburg to Sigismund Augustus. He also executed a translation of the Psalms. He wrote a play—a piece of one act, with twelve scenes—The Despatch of the Greek Ambassadors. It is written in rhymeless five-foot iambics, and is altogether a product of the Renaissance, reminding us of some of the productions of George Buchanan. Rhyme is employed in the choruses only. It was acted on the marriage of the chancellor Jan Zamoyski with Christine Radziwiłł, in the presence of King Stephen and his wife, at Ujazdowo near Warsaw in 1578. The poet's most popular work, however, is his Treny or “Lamentations,” written on the death of his daughter Ursula. These beautiful elegies have been justly praised by Mickiewicz; they are enough to raise Kochanowski far above the level of a merely artificial poet. Besides poems in Polish, he also wrote some in Latin. It will be observed that we get this double-sided authorship in many Polish writers. They composed for an exclusive and learned circle, certainly not for the Jew, the German trader of the town, or the utterly illiterate peasant. It may be said with truth of Kochanowski that, although the form of his poetry is classical and imitated from classical writers, the matter is Polish, and there is much national feeling in what he has left us. Mention must also be made of his epigrams, which he styled “Trifles” (Fraszki); they are full of spirit and geniality. Stanislaus Grochowski (1554-1612) was a priest; but his poetry is of little merit, although he was celebrated in his time as a writer of panegyrics. His satire Babie Kolo (The Women's Circle) gave offence on account of its personalities. A great partisan of the Catholics in the time of Sigismund III. was Caspar Miaskowski, whose Waleta Włoszłzonowska (Farewell to his Native Country) deserves mention. Szarzyński, who died young in 1581, deserves notice as having introduced the sonnet to the Poles. This species of poetry was afterward to be carried to great perfection by Mickiewicz and Gaszynski.
Szymonowicz (1554-1624) was a writer of good pastorals. Although they are imitated from classical writers, he has Szymonowicz. introduced many scenes of national life, which he describes with much vigour. Among the best are “The Lovers,” “The Reapers,” and “The Cake” (Kołacz). Mickiewicz is very loud in his praise, and considers him one of the best followers of Theocritus. The condition, however, of the Polish peasants was too miserable to admit of their being easily made subjects for bucolic poetry. There is an artificial air about the idylls of Szymonowicz which makes one feel too keenly that they are productions of the Renaissance; one of their best features is the humane spirit towards the miserable peasantry which they everywhere display. Another excellent writer of pastorals was Zimorowicz, a native of Lemberg, who died at the early age of twenty-five. Some of his short lyrics are very elegant, and remind us of Herrick and Carew—e.g. that beginning “Ukochana Lancellota! Ciebie nie proszę o złoto.” Another writer of pastorals, but not of equal merit, was Jan Gawinski, a native of Cracow. Some good Latin poetry was written by Casimir Sarbiewski, better known in the west of Europe as Sarbievius (d. 1640). He was considered to have approached Horace more nearly than any other modern poet, and a gold medal was given him by Pope Urban VIII. Martin Kromer (1512-1589) wrote a history of Poland in thirty books, and another volume, giving a description of the country and its institutions—both in Latin. The history is written in an easy style and is a work of great merit. A poet of some importance was Sebastian Fabian Klonowicz (1545-1602), who latinized his name into Acernus, Klon being the Polish for maple, and wrote in both Latin and Polish, and through his inclination to reform drew down on himself the anger of the clergy. Sometimes he is descriptive, as in his Polish poem entitled Flis (“The Boatman”), in which he gives a detailed account of the scenery on the banks of the Vistula. There is some poetry in this composition, but it alternates with very prosaic details. In another piece, Rhoxolania, in Latin, he describes the beauties of Galicia. Occasionally he is didactic, as in Worek Judaszow (The Bag of Judas) and Victoria deorum, where, under the allegory of the gods of Olympus, he represents the struggles of parties in Poland, not without severely satirizing the nobility and ecclesiastics. A curious work called Quincunx, written by Orzechowski (1515-1566), is concerned with religious polemics. Andrew Modrzewski, a Protestant, in his work De republica emendanda (1551), recommended the establishment of a national church which should be independent of Rome, something upon the model of the Anglican.
A florid Jesuitical style of oratory became very popular in the time of Sigismund III., not without rhetorical power, but Skarga. frequently becoming tawdry. The chief representative of this school was Piotr Skarga (1536-1612), one of the main agents in extirpating Calvinism in Poland and the Greek Church in Lithuania. Among his numerous writings may be mentioned Lives of the Saints, Discourses on the Seven Sacraments, and especially his sermons preached before the diet, in which he lashed the Poles for their want of patriotism and prophesied the downfall of the country. Mecherzynski, in his “History of Eloquence in Poland” (Historya wymowy w Polsce), especially praises his two funeral sermons on the burial of Anna Jagiellonka, widow of Stephen Bátory, and Anna of Austria, first wife of Sigismund III. Besides the Latin histories of Wapowski and Gwagnin (Guagnini, of Italian origin), we have the first historical work in Polish by Martin Bielski, a Protestant, viz. Kronika polska, which was afterwards continued by his son. The author was born in 1495 on his father's estate, Biała, and was educated, like so many other of his illustrious contemporaries, at the university of Cracow. He lived to the age of eighty; but, however great were the merits of his Chronicle, it was long considered a suspicious book on account of the leanings of the author to Calvinism. After his death his work was continued by
- ↑ His collected works were printed in 1584; they were many times reprinted, the best edition being that of Warsaw (4 vols., 1884). His life was written by Przyborowski (Posen, 1857).
