The New International Encyclopædia/Klonówicz, Sebastian

KLONÓWICZ, klṓ-nō'vĭch, Sebastian (1545-1602). A Polish satirist, also called by the Latin name Acernus. He was born at Sulmierzyce, and studied at the University of Cracow. He lived at Lublin, where he was an official in the Jewish community. His wife was a drunken wanton, who brought his fortunes so low that he was forced to live his last years on the charity of the Jesuits, whom he had previously bitterly assailed. He wrote in Latin the attacks on the Jesuits already alluded to, a poem called Victoria Deorum, and the famous Roxolania, a satire on Russia, which might be ranked as a great national poem were it in the vernacular. His Latin poems were filled with Latinized Polish words, and on the other hand his Polish poems are often made unintelligible by the use of Latinisms and Hellenisms literally translated. The Polish poems include Worek Judaszów, in which he portrays the venality and avarice of the time; and Flis, a sketch of a fortnight's travel, with mythology and digressions rivaling Ausonius. Consult Mierzynski, De Vita, Moribus, Scriptisque, Latinis S. F. Acerni (Berlin, 1857).