1826.] Horce Polonicce. 351 



been alwaysopen to the incursions of various barbaroushordes of the Tartar btock, 

 besides being, from its unhappy form of government, more exposed than any 

 other nation to domestic dissentions. Its history presents an unvarying scene of 

 turbulence and riot, arising from foreign or domestic disputes : and such is not the 

 state to encourage a literary spirit. And besides, from the Polish constitution, 

 that kingdom more frequently than any other was ruled over by foreigners, a cir- 

 cumstance peculiarly unfavourable to a young literature. To the country of Shaks- 

 pear, Milton and Dryden, of Bacon and Hooker, it svas no consequence that for 

 a space of seventy-two years the sceptre was held but for twelve by the hand of 

 a Briton. Had such a state of things existed at the close of the fifteenth 

 century, when our literature was weak and lisping, it might have done mischief. 



On the Polish drama these circumstances had the most calamitous effect. 

 The drama everywhere must depend for support on the high and middle classes of 

 a country: and in Poland, war was exclusively the occupation of the gentry, and 

 a middle-class could be scarcely said to exist. The cities were not large, and the 

 population of the country miserable serfs, bound to the soil, and with ideas as 

 confined. Their existence was seldom recognised, except when they rose in 

 desperate Jacqueries, to which they were driven by the intolerable oppression of 

 their masters, and which were usually followed by years of plague and famine. 

 The language of the court was very often foreign ; and even the Polish princes, 

 as John Casimir, encouraged Italian companies in preference to the native drama. 

 The Jesuits, who possessed a great deal of the literature of the country, did not 

 in Poland exert themselves (from causes which would be too long to enumerate) 

 to diffuse education there, as they did elsewhere; and, although some dramatic 

 pieces were written by members of the society, the ecclesiastics of the church 

 of Rome have always been, as a body, opposed to the theatre. Yet, discourag- 

 ing as this detail is, we shall commence our sketches of its literature by its 

 theatrical compositions, because, such as they arc, they give always the best 

 ,'view of the society, manners, and mode of thinking of the country. As we 

 have already ^d, wc lay them before our readers more as matter of curiosity 

 than objects of admiration. We shall analyse one of their most favourite 

 comedies, prefixing a short sketch of the history of their drama. 



The first efforts in this, in Poland, were, as every where else in modern Europe, 

 moralities or stories drawn from the Bible, or the lives of saints, unskilfully put 

 into dialogues and rudely performed. In the sixteenth century (one of the most 

 remarkable ages in the history of the human mind) other efforts began to be made : 

 but they were not very striking or successful. With singular ingratitude, one of 

 the first productions of the Polish stage was a dialogue, wretched enough in 

 every respect, turning into ridicule her greatest boast, Copernicus. A play 

 called Pamela, which we have not seen, but which is said to be very dull, was 

 acted in the reign of Sigismund the First, some time before 1548. A lyric sketch 

 called Penthesilea; a scripture piece, Joseph the Patriarch, merely a dialogue; and 

 The Dismissal of the Greek Ambassadors, by John Kochanowski, formed the 

 remainder of the dramatic productions of the sixteenth century. The last, 

 which appeared in 1550, would bear comparison with what had appeared on 

 any other stage in Europe at the same period. It is one of the thousand pieces 

 derived from " The Tale of Troy Divine," a tale which appears to have captivated 

 in a wonderful degree the mind of the middle ages. It consists of detached 

 scenes, developing character rather than incident, and is a dramatic poem 

 rather than a play. Kochanowski was a scholar, and has drawn his characters 

 from Homer; not, as usual in his time, from the later fabulists, Dictys Cretensis, 

 and Dares Phrygius, who generally formed the text-books from whence ideas 

 of the Trojan affairs were taken, even by Shakspeare.* He is also the greatest 

 lyric poet of Poland, and the chorusses of his play breathe the ancient spirit. 

 We may perhaps hereafter give a sketch of this production, 



• Shakspear, who knew nothing of Greek, and little more of Latin, in all probability 

 derived his knowledge of the " Tale of Trgy Divine" from the " Recuyel of the Histories of 

 Troy," printed bv Caxton 1171. It was translated from the work of Raoul le Feure. 



