The brilliant talent of the Poles for eloquence enjoyed, during the early part of this period and before the dissolution of the republic, the best possible opportunity for development, among the intellectual struggles and combats occasioned by the political circumstances of the country and the discussion of new political theories.  The constitutional diet of 1788-1791 exhibited a rich store of oratorical talent.  The names of the Potockis, Sapieha, Czartoryski, Kollantay, Matuszewicz, Niemcewicz, Soltyk, Kicinski, and others, were mentioned with distinction.  The eloquence of the pulpit was of course much less cultivated in a nation which lives chiefly in politics.  Lachowski, a Jesuit and court preacher of the last king, is by the Poles considered as an eminent preacher; although according to German judges he was shallow and voluble, and was surpassed by his cotemporary Wyrwicz, and above all by Karpowicz.  Prazmowski, Jakubowski, Woronicz bishop of Warsaw, Szismawski, Szweykowski, Zacharyaszewicz, and others, were esteemed as powerful preachers.

Besides the oratorical powers and the historical productions of the Poles, the reputation of their modern literature rests chiefly on poetry.  Although the Polish poets adhered longer to the strict rules of Boileau than the rest of Europe, and have only in the most recent times chosen better models in the Germans and English,—­without however having been able to free themselves entirely from their French chains,—­yet the national genius of their language has sometimes conquered the artificial restraints of narrow rules and arbitrary laws.  Naruscewicz, the celebrated historian, occupies also a distinguished rank as a poet.  He translated Anacreon and some of Horace’s odes; but wrote still more original pieces, odes, pastorals, epigrams, satires, and a tragedy entitled ‘Guido.’

The most distinguished poet under Stanislaus Augustus was count Ignatius Krasicki, bishop of Ermeland or Warmla, and later of Gnesen, the Polish Voltaire.  His principal works are an epic under the title of Woyna, Chocimska or ‘War of Chocim,’ and three comic epics, one of which, Monachomachia, ridicules the monkish system and exhibits its absurdity in strong colours.  He wrote this poem at the suggestion of Frederic the Great, to whose coterie of literary friends he belonged.  His great heroic epic is considered by his countrymen as a standard work; while foreigners look at it as a valuable historical poem indeed, but as utterly deficient in true epic power and original invention.  His smaller poems and prose writings are replete with wit and spirit; to see a bishop writing erotic songs and satirical epigrams was nothing extraordinary in his time.  As a prose writer be appears as one of the few who were not blind to the defects and follies of their countrymen.  Of his translations we mention Macpherson’s Ossian and Plutarch.  He belongs so decidedly to his age, i.e. to the age of the freezing, unpoetical, French influence, that our time, with its higher standard for a true poet, can no longer set a great value on his works.[57]