A. LANDA, _Princeton University_
SAMUEL H. MONK, _University of Minnesota_
ERNEST C. MOSSNER, _University of Texas_
JAMES SUTHERLAND, _University College, London_
H. T. SWEDENBERG, JR., _University of California, Los Angeles_

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY

EDNA C. DAVIS, _Clark Memorial Library_

INTRODUCTION

Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski (1595-1640) vas a Polish Jesuit whose
neo-Latin Horatian odes and Biblical paraphrases gained immediate
European acclaim upon their first publication in 1625 and 1628.[1] The
fine lyric quality of Sarbiewski's poetry, and the fact that he often
fused classical and Christian motifs, made a critic like Hugo Grotius
actually prefer the "divine Casimire" to Horace himself, and his
popularity among the English poets is evidenced by an impressive number
of translations.

G. Hils's _Odes of Casimire_ (1646), here reproduced by permission from
the copy in the Henry E. Huntington Library, is the earliest English
collection of translations from the verse of the Polish Horace. It is
also the most important. Acknowledged translations of individual poems
appeared in Henry Vaughan's _Olor Iscanus_ (1651), Sir Edward
Sherburne's _Poems and Translations_ (1651), the _Miscellany Poems and
Translations by Oxford Hands_ (1685), Isaac Watts's _Horae Lyricae_
(1706), Thomas Brown's _Works_ (1707-8), and John Hughes's _The Ecstasy.
An Ode_ (1720). Unacknowledged paraphrases from Casimire include Abraham
Cowley's "The Extasie,"[2] John Norris's "The Elevation,"[3] and a
number of Isaac Watts's pious and moral odes.[4] Latin editions of
Casimire's odes appeared in London in 1684, and in Cambridge in 1684
and 1689.

Another striking example of the direct influence of Casimire upon
English poetry is presented by Edward Benlowes's _Theophila_ (1652).
This long-winded epic of the soul exhibits not only a general
indebtedness in imagery and ideas, but also direct borrowings of whole
lines from Hils's _Odes of Casimire_. One example will have to suffice:

Casimire, Ode IV, 44

_Theophila_, XIII, 68

Let th' _Goth_ his strongest chaines prepare,
The _Scythians_ hence mee captive teare,
My mind being free with you, I'le stare
The Tyrants in the face....

Then let fierce Goths their strongest chains prepare;
Grim Scythians me their slave declare;
My soul being free, those tyrants in the face I'll stare.

Casimire's greatest achievement was in the field of the ph