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Macedon, foreign to the » Historia de proeliis«, etc. were added to Polish folk-lore. (4) »The History o£ the Deeds of Attila, the King of Hungary« (1574), in an excellent translation from the pen of C. Bazylik, is based on the half historical and half-fict-itious life of the national hero of Hungary, written by the Prim-ate Nicholas Olay (»Hungaria et Attila, sive de originibus gentis regni Hungariae«, 1568). 01ay^Js work contains several interesting episodes, e. g_t the legend of St. Ursula martyred with her companions by the Huns in Cologne. Some reminiscences of the latter subject may be traced in the »Chronicie of Russia and Li-thnania« by M. Stryjkowski, and in other books of the period.

The historical romance paved the way for the most valuable achievement in the province under discussion, inasmuch as it created a demand for stories treating of historical events and personalities. This was supplied by the celebrated author of the Latin »De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum libri XXX«, Martin Kromer, and came out twice, in 1570 and 1572, under the head-ing (5): »The True History of the Sorrowful Adventure of His Highness Prince John of Finland, now the King of Sweden, and His Consort, the Polish Princess Catherine«. The writer, himself a clever politician, was well versed in the interrelations between Poland and Sweden, especially he was initiated into the affair of Prince John who had endured the persecution of his mad brother, Erie XIV, and, accordingly, he had every oportunity of telling his story in a proper manner. To his knowledge of facts he was able to add, moreover, the experience and good taste of a gifted writer. He managed to suppress every sort of exagger-ation; instead, he chose to be simple but eloąuent. At the same time, he coloured the story, whenever he had to deal with the privations of the noble heroes, with warmth and sympathy, while, in the psychological portrait of the bloodstained tyrant, he prod-uced dramatic effects resembling the manner of Kromer’s great masters, Livy and Tacitus. In spite of the undeniable virtues of Kromer^fs style, his attempt at an historical novel, based on a Polish subject, was destined to remain an isolated one up to the time when, under the influence of Sir Walter Scott, J. U. Niemcewicz returned to the same problem in his novel »John of Ten-

czyn« (1825).

B. The astonishing fact that no tradition of Prench epic