Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/312

Rh 300 POLAND [LITERATURE. Poles none of those early monuments of the language which other countries boast. For instance, there are no bllini or legendary poems, such as are found among the Russians, although many passages in the ancient chroniclers from their poetical colouring seem to be borrowed from old songs or legends, and the first verses of some of these compositions have been preserved. Mention may here be made of other chroniclers such as Martin the Pole (Polonus), who died in 1279 or 1280, and Jan of Czarnkow, who died in 1389 ; the latter was the historian and panegyrist of Kazimie&quot;rz the Great. With the reign of Kazimierz III. (1333-1370) must be associated the statutes of Wislica. Jadwiga, the wife of Jagielto, was mainly instrumental in creating the university of Cracow, which was not founded, however, till 1400. In this institution for many years all the great men of Poland were trained among others Gregory of Sanok, Dlugosz, and Copernicus. Kazimierz the Great may be said to have laid the foundation of this university. Having obtained the consent of Pope Urban V., he established at Cracow a studium generate on the model of the university of Bologna. It consisted of three faculties Roman law, medicine, and philosophy. But the aristocratic youth still preferred frequenting the universities of Prague, Padua, and Paris, and accordingly the newly- founded studium languished. Jadwiga, however, obtained from Boniface IX. permission to create a new chair, that of theology ; and the university of Cracow was remodelled, having been reorganized on the same basis as that of Paris. Another university was founded later at Vilna by Batory, and one at Zamos c by the chancellor Zamoiski. There were also good schools in various places, such as the Collegium Lubranskiego of Posen and the school of St Mary at Cracow. In the year 1474 a press was set up in the latter city, where Giinther Zainer printed the first book. ! The first press from which books in the Polish language appeared was that of Hieronymus Wietor, a Silesian, who commenced publishing in 1515. A few fragments printed j in Polish had appeared before this, as the Lord s Prayer in the statutes of the bishops of Breslau in 1475, the story of Pope Urban in Latin, German, and Polish in 1505, &c. ; but the first complete work in the Polish language appeared from the press of this printer at Cracow in 1521, under the title Speeches of the Wise King Solomon. The translation was executed by Jan Koszycki, as the printer informs us in the preface, and the work is dedicated to Anna Wojnicka, the wife of a castellan. In 1522, a Polish translation of Ecclesiastes appeared from that press, and before the con clusion of that year The Life of Christ, with woodcuts, translated into Polish by Balthasar Opec. Many other presses were soon established. Printers of repute at Cra cow, during the 16th and beginning of the 17th century, were Sybeneicher and Piotrkowczyk. Dlugosz. Little as yet had been produced in Polish, as the chroniclers still adhered to Latin ; and here mention must be made of Jan Dlugosz, who called himself Longinus. He was bishop of Lemberg, the capital of Galicia, and has left us a very valuable history which has merits of style and shows considerable research. So anxious was Dlugosz to make his work as perfect as he could that he learned Russian so as to be able to read the Chronicle of Nestor. The best part of his book is that which treats of the period between 1386 and 1480. About 1500 was written an interesting little work entitled &quot; Memoirs of a Polish Janissary &quot; (Pamutniki lanczara Polafai). Although written in the Polish language, it was probably the pro duction of a Serb, Michael Konstantinovich of Ostro- vitza. He was taken prisoner by the Turks in 1455 and served ten years among the Janissaries, after which he escaped into Hungary. About this time also flourished Nicholas Copernicus, a native of Thorn, one of the few Poles who have made themselves known beyond the limits of their country. The Poles call the period between 1548 and 1606 their golden 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 Pro testants, 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 Nagtowice (1505-69). 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 Zwierciadio albo zyivol Poczciweyo Cdoivieka (&quot; The Mirror or Life of an Honourable Man&quot;), a some what 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 E&amp;lt;jypt. This piece is interesting merely from an anti quarian 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. Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584), called the prince of Kochan- Polish poets, came of a poetical family, having a brother, owskl - a cousin, 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, then one of the most celebrated poets. He exercised his talents in various ways ; thus he has left The Game of Chess, an imitation of Vida, and Proporzec albo Hold Pruski (&quot;The Standard or Investiture of Prussia&quot;), where he describes the fealty done by Albert of Brandenburg to Sigismund Augustus. He also wrote the first regular play, and executed a translation of the Psalms. The title of his play a piece of one act, with twelve scenes is 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 Zamoiski with Christine Radziwili, 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 &quot;Lamentations,&quot; 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 &quot; Trifles &quot; (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 (&quot; The Women s Circle &quot;) gave offence on account