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sympathies, the sudden way in which he switched his support from one political party to another. He also discusses the functioning of the Pac party in Lithuania. He portrays its leader against the background of his party and explains the role the voivode played in it. Another ąuestion raised in the book is the structure and functioning of Pac’s civilian and military clientele. (DD)

Piotr Napierała, Sir Robert Walpole 1676-1745. Twórca brytyjskiej potęgi [Sir Robert Walpole 1676-1745: The Architect of BritairTs Might], Poznań 2008, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM, 214 pp., ills., bibl., sum. in English

This is the first Polish biography of Robert Walpole, the first prime minister of Great Britain. The author focuses on the political career and public activity of his hero. The book is arranged chronologically, nine chapters present the successive years of Walpole’s activity from 1700 to 1745, while the first chapter concerns his childhood and youth. Napierała has madę use of an extensive literaturę, mostly in English, but he has also studied published source materials concerning mainly political matters, especially diplomacy, during Walpole’s rule. Thanks to this he has succeeded in weaving the biography of his protagonist into the history of Britain’s policy and diplomacy during the first part of the 18th century. The author pays much attention to British political culture during that time. Unlike many of his predecessors and contrary to the black legend surrounding Walpole, Napierała tries to enhance the virtucs of his hero, regarding him as the architect of the might of the British Empire. He draws attention to the close links between Walpole’s internal policy and the activity of British diplomacy in the international forum. What is interesting is that Napierała also writes about Britain’s diplomatic relations with such countries as Denmark, Sweden, Russia and Poland, the significance of which is usually belittled by British researchers. (DD)

Krzysztof Obremski, Jakub Kazimierz Rubinkowski. Dziejopis i człowiek saskiego półwiecza (Jakub Kazimierz Rubinkowski: Historiographer and Man of the Half-Century Saxon Rule), Warszawa 2008, DiG, 340 pp., ills., appendices, bibl., index of persons

This historical-literary work is a collection of studies dcvoted to literaturę and culture during the period of Saxon rule in Poland (four of the 15 chapters have been published separately earlicr). This is also an attempt at a new interpreta-tion of the hero of the book, a voice in the discussion on the person and literary achievcments of Jakub Kazimierz Rubinkowski; it is a polemic against Kazimierz Maliszewski^ study, Jakub Kazimierz Rubinkowski: szlachcic, mieszczanin toruński, erudyta barokowy [Jakub Kazimierz Rubinkowski, a Nobleman, Patrician of Thorn, Baroąue Erudite] published in 1982. Obremski starts with reflections on Sarmatism and Sarmatian messianism. TWo studies deal with the works Psalmody and Janina. The next chapter concerns The Rays of Royal Virtues which, in the