It still remains to note the progress made in the philosophical sciences. We remarked above, that scientific works in Poland were mostly written in Latin; and since the case with them is different from that of historical works,—because, as the results of scientific examination and discovery, they are independent of the country where they are written, and belong to the world,—we therefore mention here only those works which were published in the Polish language. Falimierz, in Latin Phalimirus, first ventured to use the vernacular tongue of the country for a scientific book. He published as early as 1534 a work on natural history, and especially Materia medica. The first medical work in the Polish language was written in 1541 by Peter of Kobylin; the first mathematical work by Grzebski. Their example was followed by Latosz, Rosciszewski, Andrew of Kobylin, Umiastowski, Spiczynski, Siennik, Oczko, Grutinius, Syrenski, in Latin Sirenius, and others, all physicians, astronomers, botanists, etc.[[252]]

[pg.250]

FOURTH PERIOD.

From the erection of the Cracovian Jesuit Schools in A.D. 1622, to the revival of science in A.D. 1760.

The noble race of the Jagellons had become extinct on the death of Sigismund Augustus, in 1572.[[253]] Poland had become formally an elective monarchy. Henry of Valois was the first to subscribe the pacta conventa, the fundamental law of the national liberty; the nation being understood to consist legally only of the nobility.[[254]] Stephen Bathory's strength kept the discordant elements together; and while at home he took care to improve the administration of justice, and erected the high tribunals of Petricau, Lublin, and Wilna, his victorious arms in his contest with Russia raised Poland for a short time to the summit of its glory. But under his successor Sigismund III, a Swedish prince, and nephew of Sigismund Augustus and of Stephen, began that anarchy which is to be considered as the principal cause of Poland's final calamitous fate. For about fifty years the Poles still maintained with equal valour, though with alternate good[pg.251] and ill success, their warlike character abroad; even while internal dissensions and bloody party strife raged in their own unhappy country. But to such fundamental evils, combined with the rising power of Russia, with the revolt of the Kozaks in 1654, occasioned principally by religious oppression, and with the gradual but sure advancement of a new rival in the elector of Brandenburg, hitherto considered as a weak neighbour—to all these influences, the building thus sapped in its foundation could make no resistance, and its walls could not but give way, when they were suddenly shaken by the hands of avaricious and powerful enemies from without.

The perversion of taste, which at the beginning of the seventeenth century reigned in Italy, and thence spread over all Europe, with much more rapidity indeed than the true poetry and pure style of the fifteenth century had done, created also in the literature of Poland a new period; which, through the political circumstances above referred to, was protracted to a greater length than would have been expected in a literature already so rich in national models. To the remarkable activity of mind in the preceding period, there followed a literary lethargy. A very pernicious influence is also ascribed, by the literary historians of Poland, to the Jesuits; although this order is in general disposed to favour the cultivation of science. Under Sigismund III, they were shrewd enough to make themselves gradually masters of nearly all the colleges; and after a long and obstinate struggle, even the university of Cracow had to submit. According to Bentkowski, it was principally by their influence, that the tone of panegyric and of bombast was introduced, which for nearly a hundred and fifty years disgraced the Polish literature. The tastelessness of this style reached its highest point under John Sobieski; when the panegyrics with which this victorious captain was hailed by his courtiers, became the model for all similar productions. The fashion, first introduced at the close[pg.252] of the preceding period, of interspersing the Polish language with Latin words and phrases, became during the present more and more predominant; and was at length carried so far as to give even to Polish words a false Latin sound, by means of a Latin termination. French, German, and Italian forms of expression soon obtained the same right. But what was still worse, and what indeed affected the language most of all, was the fact, that even the natural structure and well established syntax of the Polish language had to give place to an injudicious imitation of foreign idioms. Thus the very circumstance of its great pliancy, one of its principal excellencies, became a source of its corruption.

Poland, moreover, at a time when the minds of the rest of Europe were tolerably pacified in a religious respect, became the scene of theological controversies full of sophistry and bitterness, the natural consequence of the incipient oppression of the dissidents. The literature was overwhelmed with pamphlets, stuffed with a shallow scholastic erudition, and written in a style both bombastic and vulgar. But the influence of the Jesuits was not limited to literature and science; it had a still more unhappy result in its active consequences. Poland became also during this century the theatre of a religious persecution, less authorized by even the semblance of law than any which had before, or has since, occurred in other countries. The Arians or Unitarians, after having been for more than sixty years tacitly included in the general appellation of dissidents, had to sustain between the years 1638 and 1658 the utmost rigour of oppression, and were finally banished from the country; and all this without having done any thing to forfeit their rights as dissidents, from which body they had to be formally expelled by the united hatred of the other Protestants and Catholics, before even a pretext could be devised of proceeding lawfully against them. Nor had the Lutherans, Calvinists, Greeks, and[pg.253] Armenians, who, after the exclusion of the Unitarians, Quakers, and Anabaptists, were alone comprised under the name of dissidents, given any occasion for that gradual deprivation which they had to encounter of their lawful rights, in the possession of which they had been a hundred and fifty years undisturbed. The storm which threatened them, first manifested itself publicly in the diets of 1717 and 1718, and degenerated at last into open and shameless persecution. In the year 1724, a quarrel arose at Thorn, on occasion of a procession of the Jesuits, between the students of one of their schools and those of the Lutheran gymnasium. A Lutheran mob intermeddled and committed some excesses; in consequence of which the Jesuit Wolanski, in the name of his order, instituted a lawsuit against the Lutheran magistracy of the city. The result of this lawsuit was a tragedy, such as only the bloody pages of the books of the inquisition can exhibit, and unequalled as to its motives in the annals of the eighteenth century. All the perpetrators were punished with the utmost rigour; while Rösner, the president of the city, together with eleven other citizens, was publicly beheaded, and their property confiscated for the benefit of the order.

A body which acted in such a spirit, placed at the head of public education, could exert but a very injurious influence in a moral and religious respect; its influence on the literature and language has been described above. The general mental paralysis and lethargy, which reigned in Poland during this period, can indeed hardly be ascribed solely to their influence; but the latter served greatly to increase it. For more than twenty years all the schools in the whole country were in the hands of the Jesuits; and when in the year 1642 the congregation of the Piarists erected their first school in Warsaw, which soon was followed by several others founded by the same order, these seminaries had to struggle for nearly a century, watched and oppressed by the jealousy and despotism of the Jesuits, before[pg.254] they could acquire any influence consistent with the spirit in which they were founded. To the talents and firmness of Stanislaus Konarski, himself a Piarist, the Polish literary historians ascribe the principal merits of the final victory of his order. His endeavours indeed were favoured by a combination of fortunate circumstances. Literature and the fine arts found a friend and protector in a gifted and accomplished king, and in several high-minded noblemen of even more than regal authority. But the period of pedantry, perversion of taste, and deficiency of true criticism, had already lasted more than a hundred and thirty years. There was much to be done to cleanse the beds in the garden of literature from all the weeds which had luxuriated there, and to fertilize a soil which had so long lain fallow. The details of these endeavours belong however to the following period.

To the character of the theological literature of this age, we have above alluded. Among the Protestant writers were Andrew and Adalbert Wengierski. The works of the latter gave occasion to the polemical discussions of the Jesuit Poszakowski, himself the author of a history of the Lutheran and of the Calvinistic creed, and of several other books. Other works on subjects of theology and education, or collections of sermons and devotional exercises, were published by the Jesuits Szczaniecki, Koialowicz, Sapecki, Poninski, Zulkicwski, and others; and the Piarists Gutowski, Wysocki, Rosolecki, and others. The Jesuit Niesiecki wrote a comprehensive biblio-biographical work of great merit, which is considered as one of the best sources for the inquirer in Polish history and literature.[[255]] Another Jesuit, Wiiuk Koialowicz, translated Tacitus' Annals into Polish, and wrote in Latin a history of Lithuania. Knapski, also a Jesuit, published a large dictionary or "Thesaurus," which[pg.255] is still highly esteemed. Luhienski, archbishop of Gnesen, wrote in 1740 the first detailed geography in the Polish language. One of the most productive writers on various subjects of theology, history, and politics, was Starowolski, who died in 1656. Fourteen of his forty-seven works are written in Polish, the rest in Latin. We mention further, as geographical and historical writers of some merit, the Piarist Kola, professor Saltszewicz, Chodkicwicz, Niemir and Chwalkowski; and as a distinguished mathematician and scholar of general information, Broscius.