The second half of the sixteenth century, the age of the Reformation, a little belated in Poland, is known as the golden age of Polish literature, and was brilliantly inaugurated by the poet Nicholas Rey, who published his first work in 1543, and, ignorant of Latin, was able with fruit of his fertile wit, by his invention and originality to lay firm the foundations of the national literature. Up to his time what had been written In Polish was mostly translated from other languages for the benefit of lady-readers; Rey's pithy joviality, his searching satire were directed against the public at large, and won him wide popularity, especially amongst the supporters of the reformed religion, of which he was a stanch adherent.