hemian Bible for the Slovaks; see p. 205 above. Canon Palkowicz
translated the Scriptures into the Slovakian dialect. Professor P.
published a Bohemian dictionary, see pp. 205, 212; Canon P. the fourth
volume of Bernolak's Slovakian lexicon, as said in the text above.]

[Footnote 63: See pp. 199, 205.]

[Footnote 64: There does not yet exist a philological work, from which
a complete knowledge of the Slovakian language, in its different
dialects, could be obtained. The following works of Bernolak regard
chiefly the Slovakish-Moravian dialect: _Grammatica Slavica_, Posonii
1790. _Dissertatio de literis Slavorum_, Posonii 1783. _Etymologia
vocum Slavicarum_, Tyrnau 1791. _Lexicon Slav. Lot. Germ. Hung._ Buda
1825.]

CHAPTER II.

HISTORY OF THE POLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

The regions of the Baltic and Lower Vistula, after the Goths and
Vandals had finally left them, were occupied, towards the fourth
century, by the Lettonians and Lithuanians, who are according to some
historians Slavic, and according to others Finnic-Scythic tribes.[1]
It appears, that the various nations which inhabited this country were
by the ancients comprised under the name of Sarmatae. In the sixth, or
according to others, in the seventh century, the Lekhes, a people
kindred to the Czekhes, and coming like them from the Carpathian
regions, whence they were urged forwards by the Bulgarians, settled on
the banks of the Vistula and Varta. Lekh (Ljakh) signified in old
Bohemian a free and noble man, and had this meaning still in the
fourteenth century.[2] The Lekhes were divided into several tribes, of
which, according to Nestor, at first only those who settled on the
vast plains, _polie_, of the Ukraine, were called _Polyane_, Poles,
i.e. inhabitants of the plain. The tribes which occupied Masovia were
called _Masovshane_; the Lekhes who went to Pomerania, _Pomoriane_,
etc. The specific name of _Poles_, as applied to all the Lekhish
tribes together, does not appear until the close of the tenth century,
when the generic appellation of Lekhes or Ljakhes had perished. In the
year 840, the chiefs of the different tribes united themselves under
one common head; at that time they are said to have chosen a
husbandman by the name of Pjast for their duke, and the male
descendants of this, their first prince, lived and reigned not less
than six hundred and thirty years. From Germany and Bohemia
Christianity was carried to Poland by Romish priests