The principal reason why didactic prose did not acquire the same degree of cultivation as the historical style, is, that all scientific works during 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 nephew Peter, with more talent and success, the great epics of Tasso and Ariosto.