ring this period, which was that of the formation
of the language, were written by preference in Latin. Indeed, the
authority of the classical languages did not suffer at all from the
rising of the national literature. It is on the contrary a remarkable
fact, that the cultivation of the vernacular tongue of the country,
and the study of the Latin language in Poland, have ever proceeded
with equal steps. The most eminent writers and orators of this period,
who employed the Polish language, managed also the Latin with the
greatest skill and dexterity. Even for common conversation, Latin and
Polish were used alternately. Sigismund I, when separated from his
first queen, Barbara Zapolska, maintained with her a correspondence in
Latin; his second queen, Bona Sforza, used to employ that language in
their most familiar intercourse.[25] Choisnin, in his Memoirs of the
election of Henry of Valois, observes, that among a hundred Polish
noblemen, there were hardly to be found two, who did not understand
Latin, German, and Italian; and Martin Kromer goes so far as to state,
that perhaps in Latium itself fewer persons had spoken Latin fluently
than in Poland.[26] The reputation of the Latin poet Casimir
Sarbiewski, in Latin Sarbievus, spread through all Europe. Most Polish
poets were equally successful both in Polish and Latin verse. As the
former language first developed itself in poetry, we therefore, in our
enumeration of the principal writers of this time, begin with the
poets.

Here the influence of the classics, and, above all, that of the
Italian literature, is very distinctly perceived. Rey of Naglowic, ob.
1569, is called the father of Polish poetry. Most of his productions
are of the religious kind, chiefly in verse, but also orations and
postillae. His chief work was a translation of the Psalms.[27]

His principal followers were the Kochanowskis, a name of threefold
lustre. John Kochanowski, ob. 1584, by far the most distinguished of
them, published likewise a translation of David's Psalms, which is
still considered as a classical work; in his other poems, Pindar,
Anacreon, and Horace, were alternately his models, without diminishing
the original value of his pieces.[28] Adam Mickiewicz compares him, in
respect to the brevity, conciseness, and terseness of his expression,
with the last named Roman poet; in reference to his treatment of the
classic elements, to Goethe. His brother Andrew translated Virgil's
AEneid; his n