e already scattered with full hands
on a susceptible soil. It was a fortunate circumstance, that, just at
the time when several of the most powerful Polish noblemen began to
feel an intense and patriotic interest in their neglected
language,--the king Stanislaus Augustus and his uncle prince
Czartoryski at their head,--there awoke a number of gifted minds, who
began to plant with so much activity on the long deserted though still
fertile soil, that the field of Polish literature soon flourished and
bore fruit again. These fruits, however artificial and _un_national in
their character, could only be compared to green-house productions.
Various effective measures were taken for the revival of literature,
and also for the promotion of science and art. But the new patrons
could not afford to wait. The French literature of the day, with all
its levity, shallowness, and splendour, seemed to be a material nearer
at hand and more in harmony with the spirit of the court--the only
school of revival for Polish literature--than their own national
productions of former ages. In this way we may explain in part the
frivolous tone, the shallow-mindedness, which prevail in all the
Polish works of this age; during a period when vehement passions and
furious contests already tore the country in pieces, and deep sorrow
and grief reigned among all classes of society.

The establishment of the Monitor, a periodical work, to which the best
and ablest men of Poland contributed, first exerted a superficial
happy influence on the language.[40] Of still more importance in this
respect was the establishment of a national stage, at the head of
which were distinguished and well qualified men. But the measure which
produced more effect than any other, was the appointment of a
department of Education, resolved upon by the diet of 1775. Public
instruction was thus made one of the great concerns of the government
itself; and the power of the Jesuits, which had been for some time on
the decline, was finally annihilated. The rich income of this order
was henceforth entirely set apart for the benefit of learned
institutions, to which free access was given. The provincial or
departmental schools throughout the whole kingdom received a new
organization on a different plan; and the university of Cracow resumed
again its former rights. In respect to the instruction and melioration
of the situation of the common people, we find as yet no attention
whatever pai