The first permanent mass that arose out of the chaos of separate principalities, was Great Poland, on the Wartha; and this was at last united under the same master with Little Poland, on the Vistula. The nation desired a king, as their only refuge from anarchy and invasions. The Pope John XII. had been desired to appoint the king; he pleaded the principle of nonintervention, and bade the nation execute its own laws and its own will. In consequence, Ladislaus was crowned with great solemnity at Cracau, in 1320, and the series of Polish kings is from that time uninterrupted. But the period of aristocratic anarchy had impressed a character upon the government and the nation. There existed no established laws, no rising commerce, no pure religious worship. The bravery of the Poles in the field was brilliant, but barren. Their enthusiasm won victories, but could not turn them to the advantage of the country. And when, at the epoch we have named, a king was chosen for the whole state, his power was already limited, not by a fair representation of the interests of the nation, but solely by the high aristocracy. Without their consent no laws could be established, nor wars declared, nor government administered, nor justice decreed. And yet the ensuing period of Polish history is that of greatest national prosperity. The vices of the constitution were not fully developed till the close of the sixteenth century. Indeed, Casimir the Great, the immediate successor of Ladislaus, was able, like Augustus of Rome, during a reign of thirty-seven years, to establish something like justice and tranquillity in his kingdom. If he lost territory on the one side, he gained large provinces from Russia on the other. But his greatest merit consisted in his functions as a law-giver. His code was written in the Latin, expressed in neat and clear language, and was favourable to the industry and prosperity of the country. The Polish historians delight to recount the magnificence which his economy enabled him to maintain; and applying to him what used to be said of the Roman, declare that he found Poland of wood, and left it of brick.