In the year 1667, a horrible earthquake in a few moments destroyed the
prosperity of the state for whole centuries. It was as if the genius
of the Ragusian literature had been crushed under the ruins. From that
period we find all that relates to literature in a rapid decline. The
catastrophe itself, however, furnished the poets with a new subject.
In the same year, N. Bonus published a poem entitled, The city of
Ragusa to her Rulers; and Jacob Palmota (ob. 1680) wrote an elegiac
poem, The renovated Ragusa. But the most interesting production of
this period is a collection of national songs, published by the
Franciscan monk, And. Cacich Miossich.[23] This work, although
executed with little critical taste or judgment, and disfigured by
many interpolations, might have given to the literary world a
foretaste of the treasures, which fifty years afterwards were to be
discovered here.

Whilst Slavic poetry found so many votaries among the Dalmatians, it
is a remarkable fact, that all their historians wrote in Latin or
Italian. They possess indeed a very old chronicle, of the date of A.D.
1161, written in the Slavic language by an anonymous Presbyter of
Dioclea, and translated by himself into Latin; but in the more
flourishing period of the Dalmatian literature, the love of their own
language was overcome by the stronger desire of a more universal
reputation than any works written in Slavic could procure for them.
The names of N. Ragnini, Francisco Gondola, Razzi, and Caboga, must
here be mentioned. The dialect of the country, however, found some
advocates even among the clergy. For some theological works it was
preferred to the Old Slavic; or at least the Latin letters were chosen
for this language instead of the Glagolitic types. An Old Slavic
translation of the Gospels and Epistles by Bernardin de Spalatro was
printed with Latin letters, Venice 1495. At the same place appeared,
in 1613, Bandulovich's translation of the same holy books in the
common language. A Jesuit, Barth. Cassio, A.D. 1640, had translated
both the Old and New Testaments; but the printing of it was prevented
by the bishops. Anton Cacich wrote a work on moral theology, in the
common dialect of the country: and several ecclesiastics of high
standing published works for religious instruction in the same
language. The period following the catastrophe of Ragusa was fertile
in theological, or rather religious, productions. The works of the
archidiaconus Albertus, as also of Gucetich and others, contain
treatises for spiritual edification, devotional exercises, etc.
Biankovitch, bishop of Makarska, wrote a treatise of Christian
doctrine, Venice 1708, in the common Dalmatian dialect. But this
dialect found its most ardent champion in a priest, Stephan Rosa, who
exerted himself greatly to have the old church Slavonic entirely
superseded by the Dalmatian-Servian language. He made a complete
translation of the whole Bible, and sent it to the pope, requesting
that it might be printed and introduced under his high authority
instead of the Cyrillic Bible. At the same time, he proposed that the
mass should be read in the Dalmatian dialect; dwelling especially on
the circumstance, that the Cyrillic language was an ingredient of the
Greek church, and consequently the use of it in sacred things a
species of Greek heresy. The pope appointed a committee to examine the
new translation; the result of which was, as may easily be supposed,
the rejection of a measure which savoured so strongly of
Protestantism. From the time of this decision in A.D. 1754, nothing
was done to provide the catholic inhabitants of Dalmatia, Bosnia and
Slavonia with a version of the Bible, until at last a new translation,
the first satisfactory one in the language, made by the Franciscan
monk and professor Katanesich, was accepted and introduced in 1832 The
merit of having procured it to be printed and published, belongs to
the late primate of Hungary, cardinal Rudnay.[24]

The inconvenience of such an anarchical state of orthography, and
likewise in part of the grammar itself, must of course have been felt
very early; but it would seem that in this department also, the
Dalmatian writers acted with more zeal and diligence, than success.
The above-mentioned Barth. Cassio, and after him another Jesuit, J.
Micalia, endeavoured in the first half of the seventeenth century to
settle the orthography and subject it to fixed rules. Ardelio della
Bella, a member of the same order, published in 1728 a dictionary and
grammar, in which he abandoned the way opened by his predecessors,
without however finding a better one. Jos. Voltiggi endeavoured to
establish a third system of pronunciation and orthography; his
dictionary and grammar appeared in the year 1803. A few years later a
useful grammar was published by Appendini; also the great dictionary
of J. Stulli, a work of considerable merit, and far excelling all
previous works of the same kind.[25]

All the different systems and rules of orthography, exhibited and laid
down in these works, had unfortunately no permanent result. The
Dalmatians, the Slavonians, the Croats, and the Servians in Hungary,
whenever they used Latin letters, all continued to write each in their
own way. This continued until about twelve years ago; when new efforts
began to be made to unite all the different branches of the
Illyrico-Servians, and if possible also the Servians of the Greek
Church, in the use of one general system of orthography. We have seen
above the anarchy in respect to their literary language, which some
years before the two Servians Davidovitch and Vuk Stephanovitch had
found prevailing among their Cyrillic brethren; and what pains they
took to introduce the pure dialect of the people (essentially the
language of the Dalmatians) as the literary language of the whole
race; as also the efforts made by Vuk to establish a new alphabetical
system. It can hardly be doubted that these efforts; the interest they
excited; and, above all, the claims preferred by some eminent scholars
connected with them; roused the jealousy and just ambition of the
Illyrico-Servians. They were far from being willing to give up the
name of _Illyrians_ for that of _Servians_; they felt themselves a
part of a great whole, but they wanted to be acknowledged as the
_principal_ part. In order to become strong, they had above all to
unite, A gentleman of uncommon energy and intelligence at Agram, Dr.
Ludovic Gaj, the editor of a Croatian periodical, took the matter in
hand. He prepared a new system of orthography for all the
Illyrico-Servian dialects, founded on the Bohemian model, and greatly
approved by the Bohemian scholars. He himself established a printing
office in order to carry out his plan. At the same time he enlarged
his paper, which now became "The Illyrian National Gazette;" and
contrived to secure patrons of name and influence. Schaffarik declared
himself decidedly in his favour. How far he has succeeded, and how far
in general the few Illyrico-Servian literati have been able to keep up
their budding literature during the recent tempests of the times, we
are unable to say. We may say truly that we have wished for Dr. Gaj's
system of union the very best success; and have expressed above, how
desirable we deem it in every respect.[26]

_Literature of the Catholic Slavonians_.

The Slavonians of the Greek Church make use of the Cyrillic letters;
and their productions belong therefore to that division of Servian
literature.[27] We have seen above, that the catholic Slavonians also
neither speak nor write a different dialect; but that only their mode
of writing, the strange combination according to which they express
the sounds of the same language, separates them from the Dalmatian
Servians.[28] To enter into the details of these varieties would be of
little interest for our readers.

The light of the Reformation penetrated at an early day into Slavonia,
and gave birth to a kind of limited theological or ecclesiastical
national literature. But the catholic clergy soon succeeded in
extinguishing it; and in the same proportion, the Latin language
continued to supersede the dialect of the people. In more modern days,
the Latin has been preferred by nearly all catholic Slavonic writers;
and their own literature is now almost exclusively limited to works
for religious instruction, catechisms, prayer-books, etc.

But although their language was thus relinquished in a practical point
of view, it remained nevertheless the object of investigation to some
of their profoundest scholars. Thus the Latin works of Prof.
Katancsich, are almost all of them devoted to Slavic philological
inquiries, etc, The translation of the Bible mentioned above, was made
by the same learned individual.[29]

SECTION II.

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE CROATIANS.

Schaffarik in his history of the Slavic Language and Literature
enumerates, on Dobrovsky's authority, the Croatians or Croats as a
distinct branch of the great Eastern Slavic stem. Later researches
however have identified them, to a certain extent, with the other
Southern Slavi or Illyrico-Servians, with whose language theirs is
essentially the same. The recent political events, and their struggles
against the Hungarians, have made the Croats in our days again the
subject of some interest and curiosity, There is however such a
confusion in the early history of this race; such a change of names,
boundaries, and constitutions; such a contradiction between the
accounts of ancient writers and the experience of modern times; that
it would require a long historical exposition to give to the reader a
clear view of their relation to each other and to their Slavic
brethren. For such an exposition there is no room in these pages.[30]

The subject becomes far simpler if we consider the Croats only in
respect to their language, as it prevails among them at the present
time. Here they do _not_ appear as a distinct race; but still are
divided into two portions. One, in Military Croatia, comprising the
military districts of Carlstadt and Varasdin, and also the Banal
Border, speak the Dalmatian-Servian dialect with very trifling
variations; the other, in Provincial Croatia, i.e. the provincial
counties of Agram, Kreutz, and Varasdin, approach nearer to the
Slovenzi or Vindes, whose language will be the subject of our next
section.[31] The dialect of this latter division of the Croatians
forms indeed, in a certain measure, the transition and connecting link
between the Dalmatian-Servian and the Vindish languages.

We have mentioned above,[32] that the Croatians adopted a system of
writing different from that of the Dalmatians. The earliest documents
of their literature are of the sixteenth century, and all belong to
the history of the Reformation. Here also the new doctrines found
minds willing to receive them; and as several of the _magnates_, among
whom is the illustrious name of Zriny, were also their supporters,
there was no difficulty in establishing a press, in order to diffuse
the new light with greater speed and certainty. In the course of the
last half of the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth
centuries, a large number of Croatian books, catechisms, postillae,
etc. were printed. One of the warmest champions of the Reformation was
Michael Buchich, curate of the island Murakoz, who publicly adopted
the Calvinistic confession, and endeavoured to spread abroad his own,
convictions by sermons and writings. Persecuted by the bishops,
condemned by synods, he and his followers found some protection in the
Christian tolerance of the emperor Maximilian II. But the successors
of this prince thought otherwise; and the most powerful of the
Hungarian noblemen took arms for the defence of the Romish religion.
At the diets held in 1607 and 1610, destruction was sworn to the new
doctrines and to their adherents; and all steps were taken for the
fulfilment of the oath.

In the middle of the seventeenth century, all Croatia had reverted
to Romanism. From that time onward, for more than fifty years, there
was not a thought of cultivating the language of the people; all books
were again written in Latin, and are so mostly even to the present
day. The first who interested himself anew for the foundation of a
national literature, was Paul Ritter, of Vitezovich, ob. 1713, who
procured a printing office to be established by the estates, and
himself wrote several books in the Croatian language. A few writers
followed his example; but the activity of the press was, and is now,
almost exclusively devoted to the printing of the ordinary catholic
books for spiritual edification and religious instruction. The Gospels
are extant in the Croatian dialect; but not the whole Bible. Most of
the Croats, however, are able to read and understand the books of
their Dalmatian neighbours.[33]

The idea of a union among the Illyrico-Servians in respect to
orthography and literature, was principally favoured by the
Croatians, and indeed originated among them. Here Dr. Gaj and
Count Janko Draskovich, who endeavoured to interest the Illyrian
_ladies_ in the subject, by a patriotic address, had their residence.
The events of our own days have taught us, how in general the
feeling of _Slavic nationality_, in opposition to the Magyar
nationality, was roused among the Croatians; for although all
the different Slavic tribes scattered throughout Hungary--Slovaks,
Ruthenians, and Servians--participated in them, yet that feeling
was strongest among the South western Slavi; who united, as is
generally known, to elect Jellachich as their Bann.

SECTION III.

LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE OF THE VINDES OR SLOVENZI.

The Slavic inhabitants of the Austrian provinces Carinthia, Carniola,
and Stiria, extending from thence in scattered villages into Udine
once the territory of Venice, and of the Hungarian counties Eisenburg
and Szala, about a million in number, call themselves _Slovenzi_. By
foreign writers they have generally been called _Windes_ or _Vindes_;
a name, however, less definite and less correct; inasmuch as the term
Vindes or Vendes served in ancient times among the Germans as a
general name for _all_ Slavic nations. The Slavic settlements in
Carniola took place at a very early period, certainly not later than
the fifth century. In the course of the following centuries their
number was increased by new emigrations from the southeast; and they
extended themselves into the lower parts of Stiria and Carinthia, and
the western counties of Hungary.[34]

In regard to the language of this people, it was formerly considered a
matter of certainty, that it had never been a written language before
the time of the Reformation. But the investigations of modern
philologians have proved, on the contrary, that this portion of the
Slavic race was earlier acquainted with the art of writing than were
any of the other branches; probably even before the time of Cyril; and
since the discovery of several very old manuscripts in the library of
Munich, every doubt of this fact has been silenced. According to
Kopitar,[35] the true home of the Old Slavic Church language is to be
found among the Pannonian and Carinthian Slavi; and it was for them
that the Old Slavonic Bible was translated. The liturgy of Methodius
was, however, soon supplanted by the Latin worship; which at any rate
must have been earlier established in this part of the country; since
Christianity appears to have been introduced about the middle of the
eighth century, by German priests.

Be this as it may, the definite history of the language begins only
with the Reformation; and it is principally to the exertions of one
distinguished individual, that it owes its introduction into the
circle of literature. There is nothing more pleasing in the moral
world, than to behold the whole life of a man devoted to one great
cause, his thoughts all bent on one great object, his exertions all
aiming at one great purpose; and so much the more, if that object has
respect to the holiest interests of mankind. Such was the case with
the _primus_ Truber, who may be called the apostle of the Vindes and
Croatians. The direct results of his labours long ago perished in the
lapse of time; but this does not render them less deserving, although
it diminishes his fame. Truber, born A.D. 1508, canon and curate at
several places in Carniola and Carinthia, seems to have been early in
life impressed with the truth of the new doctrines of the Reformation.
His sound judgment taught him, that the surest way of enabling his
flock, and the common people in general, to receive the new light in a
proper spirit, would be the diffusion of useful knowledge among them.
And as the German, which at the present day is almost exclusively the
language of the cities of Stiria, Carniola, and Carinthia, was at that
time far less generally understood, he ventured to commit to paper a
dialect apparently never before written. In the second edition of his
New Testament, A.D. 1582, he states expressly: "Thirty-four years ago,
there was not a letter, not a register, still less a book, to be found
in our language; people regarded the Vindish and Hungarian idioms as
too coarse and barbarous to be written or read."

Truber and his assistants in this great work of reformation and
instruction, among whom we mention only Ungnad von Sonnegg and
Dalmatin, met every where with opposition and persecution; but their
activity and zeal conquered all obstacles, and succeeded in at least
partially performing that at which they aimed. Meantime, Christopher,
duke of Würtemburg, a truly evangelical prince, had opened in his
dominions an asylum for all those who had to suffer elsewhere on
account of their faith. The translation of the Scriptures every where
into the language of the common people, was regarded by this prince as
a holy duty; and this led him to cause even Slavic printing-offices to
be established in his dominions, Thither Truber went; and after
printing several books for religious instruction, he published the
Gospel of Matthew in a Vindish translation, Tübingen 1555; and two
years later the whole New Testament. As Truber did not understand the
Greek original, his translation was made from the Latin, German, and
Italian versions. At the same time a translation for the
Dalmatic-Croatians was planned; and several works for their
instruction printed and distributed. Truber, thus an exile from his
own country, died in 1586 as curate in the duchy of Würtemburg,
engaged in a translation of Luther's House-postillæ.

Two different systems of orthography had been adopted by Truber and
Dalmatin. For this reason, when in 1580 the whole Vindish Bible was to
be printed at Wittemberg, it seemed necessary to fix the orthography
according to acknowledged rules. This led also to grammatical
investigations. In the year 1584, a Vindish grammar was printed at
Wittemberg, the author of which, A. Bohorizh of Laibach, was a pupil
of Melancthon, and a scholar of that true philosophical spirit,
without which no one should undertake to write a grammar, even where
he has only to follow a beaten path; much less when he has to open for
himself a new one. Thus the Vindish written language, almost in its
birth, acquired a correctness and consistency, to which other
languages hardly attain after centuries of experiments, innovations,
and literary contests. According to the judgment of those who are best
acquainted with it, the Vindish language has undergone no change since
the time of Bohorizh,--a fact indeed scarcely credible; and the less
so, because during that whole interval it has been maintained almost
exclusively as a spoken language. About thirty years after the
publication of this grammar, the Roman Catholics, sheltered by the
despotic measures of the archduke Ferdinand, afterwards the emperor
Ferdinand II, gained a complete victory. All evangelical preachers,
and all Protestants who faithfully adhered to their religion, were
exiled; their goods confiscated; and, more than all, their books
_burned_, and their printing-office in Laibach destroyed.[36]
Fragments of the Gospels and of the Epistles were however printed at
Grätz, in 1612, for the Slavic Catholics, in their own language.

A whole century passed, and the Vindish language seemed to be entirely
lost for literature and science. Towards the close of the seventeenth
century, an academy was founded by some learned men of Carniola, on
the plan of the Italian Academy; and some attention was again paid to
the language of their forefathers. In A.D. 1715 a new edition of
Bohorizh's work, with several alterations and without mentioning the
true author, was printed by a capuchin, P. Hippolitus; who left also
in manuscript a Vindish dictionary, the first in that language.

Fifty-three years later, another grammar was published by the monk
Marcus Pochlin; a work in itself, according to the best authorities,
utterly devoid of merit, but which from the necessity of the case, and
for the want of a better, met with success, was reprinted in 1783, and
remained in common use until the appearance of Kopitar's grammar. This
last work,[37] written by one of the most eminent Slavists of the age,
made a decided epoch; not only in the history of the Vindish language,
but also, by its learned preface and comments, in the Slavic
literature at large. Several grammatical works, not without merit, and
for the most part founded on Kopitar's grammar, have since been
published;[38] and since scholars like these are now occupied with the
cultivation of the Vindish language, there exist for it and for its
kindred dialects the happiest prospects.

That this Slavic branch, a mountain people, had its treasures of
popular poetry, has always been supposed; and many single pieces, not
without beauty, have been communicated to the public in German
translations. A _collection_ of these flowers, which fade rapidly away
in this German neighbourhood, was ten years ago made by Achazel and
Korytko.[39]

The literature of a people, among whom every individual of any
education may call another highly cultivated language in the fullest
sense his own,--as is the case with the Bohemians and Slovenzi in
respect to the German,--cannot be very extensive. There have, however,
in modern times, been published several works of poetry and prose in
the Vindish language; among the writers of which we can mention only
the most distinguished. Such are, V. Vodnik, author of some
collections of poems; Kavnikar, author of a biblical history of the
Old and New Testament, and several works for religious edification;
Farnik, Kumerdcy, Popovich, etc.

But the most important work, both in a philological and moral point of
view, is the translation of the whole Bible, set on foot by G. Japel,
and executed by a society of learned men. This version being intended
for Catholics, was made from the Vulgate, and was published at Laibach
1800, in five volumes; the New Testament appeared also separately, in
two volumes, Laib. 1804. A Slavic pulpit, which was established ten
years ago at the same place, has also been of great service to the
language.

The inhabitants of the provincial counties Agram, Kreutz, Varasdin,
and the neighbouring districts, called Provincial Croatia, who speak a
somewhat different dialect of the Vindish language, but are able to
read that version of the Bible, have nevertheless several translations
in their own dialect, lying in manuscript, and only waiting for some
Maecenas, or for some favourable conjuncture, in order to make their
appearance.

The only portion of the Vindish race among whom the Protestant
religion has been kept alive, are about 15,000 Slovenzi in Hungary.
Their dialect approaches in a like measure to that of the Slovaks; and
hence serves as the connecting link between the languages of the
Eastern and Western Slavic stems. For them the New Testament exists in
a translation by Stephen Kuznico; Halle 1771; reprinted at St.
Petersburg, 1818.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: This portion of the Slavic race was formerly more
commonly known under the general appellation of _Illyrians_. With the
exception of the Bulgarians, who never have been comprehended under
it, this name has alternately been applied to the Southern Slavic
nations; sometimes only to the Dalmatians and Slavonians; sometimes to
them together with the Croatians and Vindes; by others again to the
Turkish Servians and Bosnians, etc. The old Illyrians, i.e. the
inhabitants of the Roman province Illyricum, were not Slavi, but a
people related to the old Thracians, the forefathers of the present
Albanians; see Schaffarik _Gesch_. p. 33, n. 2. _Illyricum Magnum_
comprised in the fourth century nearly all the Roman provinces of
eastern Europe. Napoleon affected to renew the names and titles of the
ancient Roman empire, and called the territory ceded to him by Austria
in 1809, viz. Carniola and all the country between the Adriatic, the
Save, and the Turkish empire, his Illyrian provinces, and their
inhabitants Illyrians. In the year 1815 a new kingdom of Illyria was
founded as an Austrian province, comprehending Carniola, Carinthia,
and Trieste with its territory. It was partly on account of this
indefiniteness, that the name of _Illyrians_ had been entirely
relinquished by modern philologists; until it was quite recently again
token up by some Croatian and Dalmatian writers. In its stead the name
of _Servians_, or more properly _Serbians, Serbs,_ has been adopted as
a general appellation by the best authorities. See below in § 1, on
the Literature of the Servians of the Greek Church. The word _Srb,
Serb, Sorab_, has been alternately derived from _Srp_, scythe; from
_Siberi, Sever,_ north; from _Sarmat_; from _Serbulja_, a kind of shoe
or sock; from _servus_, servant, etc. The true derivation has not yet
been settled. See Dobrovsky's History of the Bohemian Language, 1818;
and also his _Inst. Ling. Slav_. 1822.]

[Footnote 2: See above, p. 9 sq. and the preceding note.]

[Footnote 3: The Servians, however, under the government of their own
energetic countryman, Prince Milosh, for some years enjoyed a certain
degree of freedom, which no doubt has had good results for the mental
life of the nation. A good view of their country, constitution, and
literature, is given in a modern German work: _Reise nach Serbien im
Spätherbst_ 1829, by Otto von Pirch, Berlin 1830. See also _Servia und
Belgrade in_ 1843-44, by A.A. Paton, Lond. 1845.]

[Footnote 4: See Schaffarik _Gesch_. p. 217.]

[Footnote 5: These statutes were first printed by Raitch, in his great
work on Slavic history (see Note 8); and translated by Engel in his
History of Hungary and the adjacent Territories, Vol. 2, p. 293.]

[Footnote 6: See above, in the History of the Old Slavic Language, p.
44.]

[Footnote 7: There is however still another Cyrillic printing office
attached to an Armenian convent in Vienna. Since the printing of Vuk's
second edition of the Servian popular songs at Leipsic, several other
Servian books have also been printed there. The Vladika of Montenegro
has also established a printing office at his residence of Tzetinja.
Vuk's "Proverbs" have been printed there.]

[Footnote 8: The complete title of this valuable work is: _Istorja
raznich Slavenskich narodov nairatchvedshe Chorvatov, Bolgarov, i
Srbov_, Vienna 1792-95, 4 vols.]

[Footnote 9: The writings of this very productive philologist and
historian are however more remarkable for boldness and singularity of
assertion, than for depth. In his _Rimljani slavenstvovavshii_, Buda
1818, he undertakes to derive the entire Latin language from the
Slavic. In an earlier work, written 1809, he contends that the German
language was a corruption of the Slavic dialects spoken on the Elbe.]

[Footnote 10: The reader will find a more complete catalogue of the
Servian writers and their works, in O.v. Birch's Travels; see above,
p. 107, n. 3.]

[Footnote 11: _Narodne Serpske Poslovitze_, Zetinya 1836.]

[Footnote 12: See below in §2.b, Dalmatian Literature.]

[Footnote 13: See more on Servian popular poetry in Part IV. The title
of Vuk's collection, a part of which appeared 1814-15 at Vienna, in
two small volumes, is _Narodm Srpske pjesme_, Lpzg 1823-24, three
volumes. A fourth volume was published at Vienna 1833, with a very
instructive preface. Some of these remarkable songs have been made
known to the English public in Bowring's Servian Popular Poetry,
London 1827. This little collection contains also an able and spirited
introduction, which serves to give a clear view not only of the state
of the Servians in particular, but also of the relation of the Slavic
nations to each other in general; with the exception of some mistakes
in respect to classification.--In Germany a general interest for
Servian national poetry was excited by Goethe; see his _Kunst und
Alterthum_, Vol. V. Nos. I and II. German translations are:
_Volkslieder der Serben_, by Talvj, 2 vols. Halle 1825-26; from which
work Bowring seems chiefly to have translated. _Die Wila_, by
Gerhardt, 2 vols. Lpzg. 1828. These two works contain nearly all the
songs published by Vuk, in his first three volumes; but only half of
those he has collected. _Serbische Volkslieder_, by v. Götze, St. Pet.
and Lpzg. 1827. _Serbische Hochzeitlieder_, by Eugen Wesely, 1826. A
French translation of these songs does not yet exist, although they
have excited a deep interest among the literati of France. The work
_la Guzla_, published at Paris in 1827 and purporting to contain
translations of Dalmatian national songs, is not genuine; it was
written by the French poet Mérimée, with much talent indeed, but
without any knowledge of the Servian language.]

[Footnote 14: That is: Wolf, son of Stephan, belonging to the family
of the Karadshians, inhabitants of a certain district or village. The
Servians in Servia proper and Bosnia have not yet any family names.
Those who emigrated in early years to other countries mostly adopted
their fathers' names with the suffix of _vitch_ as a family name; for
instance Markovitch, Gregorovitch, i.q. Markson, Gregorson, etc. The
Servian subjects of Turkey, who settle in other parts of the country,
still mostly follow this rule. Vuk neglected this; and acquired
therefore his literary fame under his Christian name of _Vuk_. But, as
a father of a family and an Austrian citizen, he is called
_Karadshitch_ after his tribe; which for reasons we do not know he
seems to have preferred to the name of Stephanovitch.]

[Footnote 15: We must correct here a mistake made by Dr. Henderson in
his Biblical Researches, in respect to the Servian New Testament. He
says, p. 263, "A version of the (Servian) New Testament was indeed
executed some years ago, but its merits were not of such a description
as to warrant the committee of the Russian Bible Society to carry it
through the press; yet, as they were deeply convinced of the
importance of the object, they were induced to engage a native
Servian, of the name of Athanasius Stoïkovitch to make a new
translation, the printing of which was completed in the year 1825, but
owing to the cessation of the Society's operations, the distribution
of the copies has hitherto been retarded." Dr. Henderson probably
received his information at St. Petersburg, and felt himself of course
entitled to depend on it, being very likely not acquainted with the
great schism in modern Servian literature above mentioned. If we may
confide in our own recollections, the translation, the merits of which
the committee of the Russian Bible Society was so little disposed to
acknowledge, was made by Vuk Stephanovitch, who knew better than any
one else the wants of the Servian people, and who presented in the
above mentioned Gospel of St. Luke a specimen to the learned world,
which received the approbation of all those Slavic scholars entitled
to judge of the subject. The committee of St. Petersburg, however, was
probably composed of gentlemen of the opposite party; as indeed the
Russian Servians are, in general, advocates of the mixed Slavo-Servian
language, in which for about fifty years all books for the Servians
were written, and which we have described above in Schaffarik's words;
see p. 108. According to their ideas of the Servian language, the mere
use of the common dialect of the people was sufficient to inspire
doubts of the competency of the translator; although it was for the
people, the unlearned, that the translation was professedly made. They
engaged in consequence Professor Stoïkovitch, the author of several
Russian and Slavo-Servian books (see above p. 112), and who had been
for more than twenty years in the Russian service, to make a new
translation. This person, who, to judge from our personal acquaintance
with him, probably on this occasion read the Gospels for the first
time in his life with any attention, took the rejected version for his
basis; altered it, according to his views of the dignity of the
Servian language, into the customary mixed Slavo-Servian Russian
idiom; and received the reward from the Society. Whether this is the
version afterwards printed at Leipsic and distributed in Servia by the
English Bible Society, we are not informed. From private letters we
know, that in the year 1827, that Society proposed to Vuk
Stephanovitch to allow him £500, if after obtaining appropriate
testimonies for the correctness of his version, he would print one
thousand copies in Servia; and also authorized its correspondent in
Constantinople, Mr. Leeves, to arrange the matter finally with Vuk.
From M. Kopitar's remark however, that the translation for the
Dalmatian Roman Catholics needed only to be transcribed with Cyrillic
letters to come into use among the eastern Servians, we are entitled
to conclude that the version now circulated, is not such as it ought
to be; and a correct one, for that part of the nation, is still a
desideratum. It would seem therefore that Vuk Stephanovitch cannot
have accepted the offer in question. See Kopitar's Letter to the
Editor of the Bibl. Repos. Vol. III. 1833, p. 186.]

[Footnote 16: The _Serbianka_ of Milutinovitch was published at
Leipsic, 1826; his History at the same place, 1837.]

[Footnote 17: _Pjevanija Tzernogorska i Herzegovatshka etc. izdana
Josifom Milowukom,_ Ofen 1833--_Pjevanija Tzernogorska i
Herzegovatshka sabrana i izdana Tshubrom Tshoikovitckom, etc_. Leipz.
1839.]

[Footnote 16: _Montenegro_, properly _Montenero,_ is the Italian
translation of _Tzernagora,_ Black Mountain, a name which is applied
to these ranges on account of the dark colour of the rocks and woods.]

[Footnote 17: More on the Vladika and on Montenegro in general, see in
the recent work of Sir J.G. Wilkinson, _Dalmatia and Montenegro_, 2 vols.
Lond. 1848. Also an article in the _British and Foreign Review_, July
1840, by Count Krasinski. A full and very interesting account of the
country and people, is found in the little work of Vuk Stephanovitch
Karadshich, _Montenegro und die Montenegriner_, 8vo. Stuttg. u. Tüb.
1837; published in Cotta's "Reisen u. Landerbeschreibungen der ältern
u. neuern Zeit."]

[Footnote 18: See above, p. 37 sq.]

[Footnote 19: Kopitar, _Glagolita Clozianus_, Vindob. 1836.]

[Footnote 20: See above, p. 41.]

[Footnote 21: On the still earlier Glagolitie manuscript discovered at
Trent, there was also found a note written by one of its former noble
owners, that "dises puech hat Sant Jeronimuss mit aigner hant
geschriben in krabatischer sprach."]

[Footnote 22: A fine copy of the above splendid work is now on sale by
the publisher of this volume.]

[Footnote 23: _Razgovor ugodni naroda slavinskoga_, Venice 1759. A new
edition appeared in the year 1811.]

[Footnote 24: Letter of Kopitar to the Editor, Bibl. Repos. 1833, p.
136.]

[Footnote 25: F. Verantii _Dictionarium quinque nobiliss. Eur. Ling.
Lat. Ital. Germ. Dalm. et Ung_. Venice 1595. Micalia _Thesaurus
linguae Illyricae_, etc. Ancona 1651. Delia Bella _Dizionario It. Lat.
Illyr_. Venice 1728; later edit. Ragusa 1785. Voltiggi _Riesosbronik
illyriesiskoga, ital. i nimacsk_, Vienna 1803. Stulli _Lexicon Lat.
Ital. Illyr_. etc, Buda and Ragusa 1801-10, 6 vols. Prefixed to the
four last works, are also grammars. Other Dalmatian grammars are:
Cassii _Institutiones linguae Illyricae_, Rome, 1604. Appendini
_Grammatik der illyrischen Sprache_, Ragusa 1608. Starchsevich _Nuova
Gramm. Illyrica_, Trieste 1012. Babukich _Illyrische Grammatik_, Wien
1839.]

[Footnote 26: See above, p. 116, 117.]

[Footnote 27: See above in § 1. p. 108.]

[Footnote 28: See p. 128 above.]

[Footnote 29: See p. 131.--As dictionaries and grammars of this
dialect are to be mentioned: Relcovich _Deutsch illyrisches and illyr.
deutsches Wörterb._ Vienna 1796. By the same: _Neue Slawonisch-deutche
Grammatik_, Agram 1767. Vienna 1774. Buda 1789. Lanossovich
_Einleitung zur Slav. Sprache,_ several editions from 1778-1795.]

[Footnote 30: See the second volume of Engel's _History of Hungary_
etc. Katanesich _Specimen phil. et geogr. Pannon._ etc. 1795.
Schaffarik's _Geschichte_, etc. p. 226-31, 235, 265.]

[Footnote 31: These two divisions of Military and Provincial Croatia
constitute the modern Austrian kingdom of Croatia, which is united
with that of Hungary. See For. Quart. Review, Vol. VII. p. 423 sq.]

[Footnote 32: See p. 128 above.]

[Footnote 33: Croatian philological works are: _Einleitung zur croat.
Spracklehre,_ Varasdin 1783. Kornig's _Croat. Sprachlehre,_ Agram
1795. Gyurkovshky's _Croat. Grammatik,_ 1825. Rukevina v. Liebstadt
_Kroatische Sprachformen,_ etc. Trieste 1843. Habdelich _Dictionarium
croat. lat_. Grätz 1670. Belloszlenecz _Gazophylacium s.
Latino-Illyricor._ etc. Agram 1740. Jambressich's _Lex. Lat. interpr.
illyrica, germ_. etc. Agram 1742.]

[Footnote 34: See Engel, etc. III p. 469.]

[Footnote 35: See the _Wiener Jahrbücher_, 1822, Vol. XVII. See too
the _Glagolita Clozianus_, and the article "On the Pannonian Origin of
the Slavic Liturgy." See above, pp. 28, 39.]

[Footnote 36: Schaffarik observes, _Geschichte_, p. 283, "The public
library in the state-house was delivered to the Jesuits, who had just
been introduced. The books which these did not commit to the flames on
the spot, perished in the great conflagration in 1774, together with
the edifice of their college. In all Carniola only two copies of
Bohorizh's grammar are known to exist"]

[Footnote 37: _Grammatik der Slavischen Sprache in Krain, Kärnthen,
und Steyermark_, Laibach 1808.]

[Footnote 38: These are: V. Vodnik's _Pismenost ali gramm. saperve
shole_, Laib. 1811. Metelko's _Lehrgelaude der Slovenischen Sprache_,
1825. Schmigoz _Theor. pract. wind. Sprachlehre_, Gratz 1812. P.
Dainko _Lehrbuch der wind. Sprache,_ Gratz 1825. Mali _Bezedniak
Slovenskich_, Laibach 1834.]

[Footnote 39: _Slovenske pjesmi Krajnskiga Naroda_, Laibach 1839.]

CHAPTER III.

LANGUAGE OF THE BULGARIANS.

According to the opinion of the Russian, and especially of the
Bohemian philologians, Bulgaria and the adjacent regions of Macedonia,
are the real home of the Old Slavic language; which was here, as they
suppose, the language of the people in the time of Cyril, who was born
in Thessalonica.[1] No other Slavic dialect however, as Kopitar
remarks, has been so much affected as the Bulgarian by the course of
time and foreign influence, both in its grammatical structure and its
whole character.[2] It has an article, which, as if in order to show
whence it was borrowed, is put _after_ the word it qualifies, like
that of the Walachians and Albanians. Of the seven Slavic cases, only
the nominative and vocative remain to it; all the rest being supplied
by means of prepositions. As Bulgaria has been for centuries the great
thoroughfare of other nations, the Slavic natives have become mixed
with Rumenians, Turco-Tartars, and perhaps Greeks, It is in this way,
that the state of their language may be accounted for.

Up to 1392, when Bulgaria was an independent kingdom,--tributary to
the Greek empire, until the decline of the latter encouraged them to
break the weak tie of vassalage.--their writings were in the Old
Slavic language; and many documents in it are still extant in monastic
libraries. Venelin, a young Russian scholar, who by his researches on
the Bulgarian, or, as he would fain call it, the _Bolgarian_ language,
had excited great hopes in the learned Slavic world, was sent in 1835
to Bulgaria, by the Russian Archaeographical Commission, to search,
after historical documents and to examine the language. The
publication of a "Bolgarian Grammar," and two volumes of a "History of
the Bolgarians," were the result. While engaged in preparing a third
volume, he died; less regretted by the literary world, it is said,
than would have been anticipated some years before; since his
productions had not justified the expectations raised by his zeal. He
seems to have been one of those visionary etymologists, who found
their conclusions on the analogy of sound and similar accidental
features; a class of scholars, which, in our age of philosophical
research, has no longer much chance of success.

The history of the Bulgarians is a series of continued warfare with
the Servians, Greeks, and Hungarians, on the one hand; and on the
other, with the Turks, who subdued them, and put an end to the
existence of a Bulgarian kingdom in A.D. 1392. The people, first
converted to Christianity by Cyril and Methodius, had hitherto adhered
to the Greek church; except for a short interval in the last half of
the twelfth century, when the Roman chair succeeded in bringing them
under its dominion. Since the establishment of the Turkish government,
apostasy to Muhammedanism has been more frequent in Bulgaria, than in
any other of the Christian provinces of the Porte. Still, the bulk of
the population has remained faithful to the Slavic Greek worship. The
scanty germs of cultivation sown among them by two or three of their
princes, who caused several Byzantine works to be translated into the
Bulgarian dialect, perished during the Turkish invasion. The few
books used by the priesthood in our days, are obtained from Russia.
They have no trace of a literature, and the only point of view from
which their language, uncultivated as it is, can excite a general
interest, is in respect to their popular songs. In these this dialect
likewise is said to be exceedingly rich.

The Russian Bible Society had prepared a Bulgarian translation of the
New Testament, intended more especially for the benefit of the
Bulgarian inhabitants of the Russian province of Bessarabia. But the
specimen printed in 1823 excited some doubt as to the competency of
the translator in respect to his knowledge of the Bulgarian language;
and it was deemed advisable to put a stop to its further progress.
Among the Albanian portion of its inhabitants, the New Testament has
been distributed by the British and Foreign Bible Society.

In the dearth of all philological helps in respect to the Bulgarian
language, it is matter of grateful acknowledgment to Slavic scholars,
that an American missionary, the Kev. E. Biggs, stationed at Smyrna,
should recently have taken up the subject, and furnished us with a
brief sketch of the principal features of the Bulgarian grammar. It
seems that the Bulgarians have availed themselves of the printing
establishment founded by the American missionaries at Smyrna; and some
books in this language have been there printed. Mr. Kiggs says of the
language, that "its literature is very slender, consisting almost
entirely of a few elementary books, printed in Bucharest, Belgrad,
Buda, Cracow, Constantinople, and Smyrna." A Bulgarian translation of
Gallaudet's "Child's Book on the Soul," was sent by the same gentleman
to New York. From the same source we learn that a Bulgarian version of
the New Testament was printed at Smyrna in 1840, for the British and
Foreign Bible Society; and that in 1844 the first number of a monthly
magazine, entitled "Philology," was issued from the same press.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: See above, pp. 27, 28.]

[Footnote 2: _Wiener Jahrbucher der Literatur_, 1822, Vol. XVII.]

PART III.

WESTERN SLAVI.

CHAPTER I.

CZEKHO-SLOVAKIAN BRANCH.

SECTION I

HISTORY OF THE CZEKHISH OR BOHEMIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.

Of all the Slavic languages, the Bohemian dialect with its literature
is the only one, which, in the mind of the protestant reader, can
escite a more than general interest. Not so much indeed by its own
nature, in which it differs little from the other Slavic languages;
but from those remarkable circumstances, which, in the night of a
degenerate Romanism, made the Bohemian tongue, with the exception of
the voice of Wickliffe, the first organ of truth. Wickliffe's
influence, however great and decided it may have been, was
nevertheless limited to the theologians and literati of the age; his
voice did not find that responding echo among the common people, which
alone is able to give life to abstract doctrines. It was in Bohemia,
that the spark first blazed up into a lively flame, which a century
later spread an enlightening fire over all Europe. The names of Huss
and Jerome of Prague can never perish; although less success has made
them less current than those of Luther and Melancthon. In no language
of the world has the Bible been studied with more zeal and devotion;
no nation has ever been more willing to seal their claims upon the
Word of God with their blood. The long contests of the Bohemians for
liberty of conscience, and their final destruction, present one of the
most heart-rending tragedies to be found in human history. Not less
ready to maintain their convictions with the pen than with the sword,
the theological literature of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first
twenty years of the seventeenth centuries, is of an extent with which
that of no other Slavic language can be compared. It is true, however,
that most of these productions bear decidedly the stamp of the period
in which they were written. Dictated by the polemical spirit of the
age, and for the most part directed by one protestant party against
another, there is very little to be found in them to gratify the
Christian, or from which the theological student of the present day
could derive any other than historical instruction. On the other hand,
while the theological literature of all the other Slavic nations is
almost exclusively limited to sermons, catechisms, prayer-books, and
other devotional exercises, among the Bohemians alone do we meet with
cxegetical researches and interpretations, founded on a scientific
examination of the original text of the Scriptures.

There are few branches of science or art in which the Bohemians have
not to boast of some eminent name. But the talent for which this
nation is the most distinguished is that of music A fondness for music
and a natural gift to execute it is indeed common to all Slavic
nations: but whilst their talent is mostly confined to a susceptible
ear, and a skill in imitating,--for the Russians and Poles possess
some celebrated musical _performers_ though very few distinguished
_composers_,--the talent of the Bohemian is of a far higher order.
He unites the spirit of harmony which characterizes the Germans, with
the sweet gift of melody belonging to the Italians, and thus seems to
be the true _ideal_ of a complete musician. A great part of the most
eminent names among German composers are Bohemians by birth; and there
is hardly any thing which strikes the American and English traveller
in that beautiful region more, than the general prevalence of a gift
so seldom met with in their own countries.

Bohemia, until the sixth century was inhabited by a Celtic race, the
Boii. After them the country was called _Boiohemnum,_ i.e., home of
the Boii; in German still Böheim.[1] The Boii were driven to the
south-west by the Markomanns; the Markomanns were conquered by the
Lombards. After the downfall of the great kingdom of Thuringia in the
middle of the sixth century, Slavic nations pushed forward into
Germany, and the _Czekhes_ settled in Bohemia, where an almost
deserted country offered them little or no resistance. The Czekhes, a
Slavic race, came from Belo-Chrobatia, as the region north of the
Carpathian range was then called.[2] Their name has been usually
explained from that of their chief, Czekh; but Dobrovsky more
satisfactorily derives it from _czeti, czjti_, to begin, to be the
first; according to him Czekhes signifies much the same as
Front-SIavi.[3] The person of Czekh has rather a mythological than an
historical foundation. The whole history of that period, indeed, is
so intimately interwoven with poetical legends and mythological
traditions, that it seems impossible at the present time to
distinguish real facts from poetical ornaments. The hero of the
ancient chronicles Samo, the just Krok, Libussa the wise and
beautiful, and the husband of her choice, the peasant Perzmislas, all
move in a circle of poetical fiction. There is, however, no doubt that
there is an historical foundation for all these persons; for tradition
only expands and embellishes; but rarely, if ever, invents.

What we have said in our introduction, in regard to the vestiges of an
early cultivation of the Slavic nations in general, must be applied to
the Czekhes particularly.[4] The courts of justice in which the just
Krok and his daughter presided, and which the chronicles describe to
us, present indeed a wonderful mixture of the sacred forms of a well
organized society, and of that patriarchal relation, which induced the
dissenting parties to yield with childlike submission to the arbitrary
decisions of the prince's wisdom. According to the chronicle, so early
as A.D. 722, Libussa kept a _pisak_ or clerk, literally, _a, writer;_
and her prophecies were written down in Slavic characters. The same
princess is said to have founded Prague. A considerable number of
Bohemian poems, some of which have been only recently discovered, are
evidently derived from the pagan period. Libussa's choice of the
country yeoman Perzmislas for her husband, in preference to her noble
suitors, indicates the early existence of a free and independent
peasantry. All these scattered features are however insufficient to
give us a distinct picture of this early period; and here, as among
all other Slavic nations, _history_ commences only with the
introduction of Christianity. The small states originally founded by
the Czekhes, were first united into one dukedom during the last years
of Perzmislas; while under his son Nezamysl, in the year 752, they
are said to have first distributed the lands in fee, and to have given
to the whole community a constitutional form.

The name of Boii, Bohemians, was transferred to the Czekhes by the
neighbouring nations. They continued to call themselves Czekhes, as
they do even now. The Moravians, a nearly related Slavic race, who
probably came to these regions at the same time with the Czekhes,
called themselves _Morawczik_,[5] from _Morawa,_ morass, a name
frequently repeated in Slavic countries. Until A.D. 1029, they were as
a people entirely separated from the Bohemians. They had formed
different petty states; their chiefs were called _Kniazi_, like those
of their eastern brethren. The ancient Moravia, however, spread far
beyond the limits of the present country of this name, and extended
deep into Hungary. Hence this portion of the Slavic race was also
generally comprised under the name of the Pannonic Slavi. We have
shown above, in the history of the Old Slavonic language, that
Moravia, then for a short period a powerful kingdom, was the principal
theatre of Methodius' exertions.[6] As at this time Christianity had
been already introduced into these regions, and the kings Rostislav
and Svatopluk, as well as most of their subjects, were already
baptized, it is very probable that they were induced by motives of
policy to send to Constantinople for a Christian teacher. Oppressed by
the Germans, the usurpations of whose emperors were in a certain
measure sanctioned by the chair of Rome, they desired to secure for
themselves in the Byzantine court a powerful ally. After the
dissolution of the Moravian kingdom in A.D. 1029, the present Moravia
fell to Bohemia; was separated from it repeatedly in the course of the
following centuries; and at length, in the beginning of the
seventeenth century, became together with this kingdom an ingredient
part of the Austrian states.

The Moravians were among the earliest Slavic tribes converted to
Christianity. As early as the seventeenth century a considerable
portion of them were baptized by German priests. It was however not
before the first half of the ninth century, that the first Christian
missionaries entered Bohemia. In the year 845, fourteen Bohemian
princes were baptized at Ratisbon. In the year 894 the duke Borzivog,
the head of the nation, received baptism; but his successors went back
to idolatry, and with them the greatest part of the people.
Christianity was not firmly established in these regions until the
second half of the tenth century. At this time the Slavic liturgy
introduced by Methodius into Moravia was already, in some measure, by
the indefatigable exertions of the Romish German priesthood,
superseded by the Latin worship. Thus it never was fully established
in Bohemia with the exception of a few churches, attached to convents
founded expressly in memory of the Slavic saints, Jerome, Cyril, and
Methodius. Their inmates however were expelled in favour of
German-Bohemian monks, or they died; and with them disappeared every
vestige of the innovations of Cyril and Methodius. Hence the Old
Slavic language, and the noble translation of the Bible extant in
it, have exercised only an inconsiderable influence on the Bohemian
idiom.[7]

Bohemia, under the sovereignty of her dukes, and from A.D. 1198, under
that of kings, was independent of the German empire, or at least did
not belong to its circles; it recognized however a kind of sovereignty
in that powerful neighbour, and the kings of Bohemia deemed it an
honour to belong to the seven Electors, who chose the worldly head of
Christianity. In the year 1306, the last male descendant of Perzmislas
was murdered. His house had reigned in Bohemia in uninterrupted
succession; although the kingdom was properly not hereditary, but
elective, like Germany, Hungary, and Poland. After a short interval,
the crown of Bohemia fell by succession to the house of Luxemburg, and
thus became several times united with the Roman imperial crown. Under
the emperor Charles IV, Bohemia rose to the summit of its lustre. It
was he who founded, A.D. 1348, the university of Prague, the first
Slavic institution of that description.[8] Under his successor,
Wenceslaus, the war of the Hussites began. In the year 1457. the
Bohemians maintained their right of election by placing George
Podiebrad, a Bohemian, on the throne. The wisdom and equity of this
individual justified their choice. In A.D. 1527, Ferdinand I, archduke
of Austria, was elected king; and from that time the Bohemians have
never again been able to detach themselves from Austria; with the
exception of a short interval, during which the unfortunate palatine
Frederic, known in the history of the thirty years' war, was placed on
their throne. During the fifteenth, sixteenth, and the first half of
the seventeenth, centuries. Bohemia was almost without interruption
the theatre of bloody wars and contests in behalf of their religious
liberties. Then came the awful stillness of death, which reigned for
more than a hundred years over this exhausted and agonized country.
For its revival and its present comparatively flourishing condition,
it is indebted to its own rich natural resources, and to the wiser
policy and milder dispositions of the more recent Austrian sovereigns.

The Bohemian language is the common property not only of the Bohemians
and the Moravians, constituting together about three and a half
millions in number, but also of nearly two millions of Slovaks, those
venerable remains of the ancient Slavic settlements between the
Carpathian mountains and the rivers Theiss and Danube. This people, so
nearly related to the Czekhes, occupy the whole north-western part of
Hungary; and are, besides this, scattered over that whole kingdom.
They _speak_ indeed a dialect or rather several dialects essentially
different from the language spoken in Bohemia and Moravia; but the
circumstance of their having, since the Reformation, chosen the
Bohemian for their literary language, amalgamates their contributions
to literature with those of the Bohemians, and gives them an equal
right to the productions of these latter.

Of all the modern Slavic languages, the Bohemian was the first
cultivated. Two bishops of Merscburg, Boso towards the middle of the
tenth century, and Werner at the close of the eleventh, as also fifty
years later another German priest, Bruno, were above all active in
promoting the holy cause of Christianity by religious instruction. The
application of Latin characters to Slavic words had long been familiar
to the German priesthood; inasmuch as very early attempts had been
made to convert the subjugated Slavic tribes, scattered through the
north of Germany.

They now were applied to the Bohemian, so far as writing was requisite
for religious instruction. According to the old chronicles, there were
even some regular schools erected in those early times, one at Budecz,
near Prague, and another somewhat later in Prague itself, where Latin
was taught. Be this as it may, the Latin and German languages had an
early influence on the formation of the Bohemian. Many foreign words
were adopted and amalgamated with the language; still more were formed
from native roots, after the model of those two idioms. In later times
this capacity of the Bohemian has been greatly improved; it being one
of the few languages, which, in philosophy, theology, and
jurisprudence, have not borrowed their terminology from the Latins and
Greeks, but formed their own technical expressions for ideas received
only in part from other nations. The extraordinary refinement of the
Bohemian verb we have mentioned in our remarks upon the Slavic
languages in general. In respect to free and independent construction,
the Bohemian approaches the Latin; by its richness in conjunctions it
differs essentially from the Russian, and is able to imitate the Greek
in all its lighter shades. Thus it yields neither in copiousness nor
in pliability, neither in clearness nor in precision,[9] to any other
Slavic language; while in respect to lexical and grammatical
cultivation it is superior to all of them. The Bohemian alone, of all
the Slavic languages, has hitherto succeeded in imitating perfectly
the classic metres; although the same degree of capacity for them is
acknowledged in the Southern-Slavic dialects.

After so much well deserved praise, we must also mention, that in
respect to sound, the reproach of harshness and want of euphony has
been made with more justice against none of the Slavic tongues. It
is true that all the reasons, by which we have above seen the Slavic
languages in general defended,[10] apply with equal weight to the
Bohemian in particular. It appears also, that this apparent harshness
is more a production of modern times, than a necessary ingredient of
the original language; for the ancient Bohemian of legends and popular
songs sounds by far more melodious; and the dialects spoken by the
Slovaks, which are kindred to the Old Bohemian, are full of vowels,
and are even distinguished from the other Slavic tongues by
diphthongs. On the other hand, it cannot be denied, that the
accumulation of consonants, in which the Bohemian surpasses by far,
not the Polish, but the southern and eastern languages, and its
peculiar preference of the vowels _e_ and _i_ over the fuller sounding
_a, o, u_, do not add to the euphony of the language; although it
seems singular to bring forward such a reproach against a people so
distinguished for their musical talent.

The history of the Bohemian literature may be divided into five
periods.

The _first_ comprises the whole interval from our first knowledge of
the Czekhes to the influence of Huss; or from A.D. 550 to A.D. 1400.

The _second_ period comprises a full century, from Huss to the general
diffusion of the art of printing.

The _third_ period, the golden age of the Bohemian literature,
comprises about the same interval, and extends to the battle at the
White Mountain, A.D. 1620.

The _fourth_ period, extends from the battle at the White Mountain to
the revival of literature in 1774-1780.

The _fifth_ period, covers the interval from 1780 to the present time.

FIRST PERIOD.

_From the first settlement of the Czekhes, A.D_. 550, _to John Huss,
A.D_. 1400.

Of the language of the Czekhes as it existed when they first settled
in Bohemia, nothing is left, except the names they gave to the rivers,
mountains, and towns, and those of their first chiefs. All these names
entitle us to conclude, that their language was then essentially the
same as at the present time, though more nearly approaching the Old
Slavic. The first _certain_ written documents of the language are not
older than the introduction of Christianity. There were indeed
discovered, about thirty years ago, some fragments of poetry, which
appear to lie derived from the pagan period.[11] The manuscript has
been deposited in the Museum of Prague, and the high beauties and
evident antiquity of these poems have secured them warm advocates and
admiring commentators. But the circumstance that Dobrovsky doubted
their genuineness, induces us to regard this point at least as not
incontestable in respect to the language; in respect to the manners
they describe, and the institutions they allude to, they bear very
strong evidence of a later origin.[12] Another highly valuable
fragment is the celebrated manuscript of Koniginhof, discovered in the
year 1817 by the librarian Hanka, half buried among rubbish and
worthless papers.[13] This collection, the genuineness of which is
subject to no doubt, contains likewise several poems, the original
composition of which belongs evidently to the eighth or ninth century.
But the manuscript itself is not older than the end of the thirteenth
century, and cannot therefore be considered as a sure monument of the
language in an earlier age. All these national songs have an
historical foundation; they celebrate battles and victories; and their
evident tendency is to exalt the national feelings. They have not that
plastic and _objective_ character which makes Homer and the Servian
popular epics so remarkable; and from which it appears that the poet,
during the time of his inspiration, is rather _above_ his subject; but
like the Russian tale of Igor's Expedition, the epic beauties are
merged in the lyric effusions of the poet's own feelings, who thus
never attempts to conceal that his whole soul is engaged in his
subject.

The oldest monuments of the Christian age are the names of the days,
which are of pure Slavic origin. Of the Lord's Prayer in Bohemian, on
comparing the oldest copy he could find among the ancient manuscripts,
Dobrovsky presumes that the form must have been about the same in the
ninth or tenth century; although the manuscript itself is somewhat
later. A translation of the _Kyrie eleison_, ascribed to Adalbert
second bishop of Prague, dates from the same time. During the eleventh
and twelfth centuries many convents were founded and schools attached
to them; German artists and mechanics and even agriculturists settled
in Bohemia. The influence of German customs and habits showed itself
more and more, and the nobility began to use in preference the German
language. In the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
this influence increased considerably, and exhibited itself most
favourably in the lyric poetry of the time, an echo of the German
Minnesingers; many of the poets belonging like them to the highest
nobility. Of all the Slavic nations, the Bohemian is the only one in
which the flower of chivalry has ever unfolded itself; and the cause
of its development here is doubtless to be sought in their occidental
feudal system, and in their constant intercourse with the Germans. The
natural tendency of the Polish nobility to heroic deeds and chivalrous
adventures was counterbalanced, partly by the oriental character of
their relation to the peasantry, which impressed on them at least as
much of the character of the Asiatic satrap, as of the occidental
knight; and partly by the want of a free middle class in Poland, as
also in Russia. True chivalry indeed does not require simply the
contrast of a low, helpless, and submissive class; its lustre never
appears brighter than when placed side by side with an independent
yeomanry.

In calling the Bohemian lyric poetry of this age the echo of the
German, we do not mean to say it was wanting in originality; but wish
rather to convey the idea, that the same spirit inspired at the time
the Bohemians and the Germans, proceeding however from the latter, who
themselves received it from the more romantic Provence. Of these
heroic love-songs very few are left. There are, however, several
productions of this period, in which the German influence is not to be
recognized at all, but which exhibit purely Slavic national features.
We will here enumerate the monuments of the Bohemian language from
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which have been preserved,
before we pass to the fourteenth, which was more productive and
exhibited in some measure a new character.

The most remarkable is the above-mentioned manuscript of Königinhof.
It contains, besides several epic songs partly complete and partly
fragmentary, seven or eight charming lyric pieces. The near
relationship of the Slavic nations among each other, is exhibited in
no feature more strikingly than in their national popular poetry,
especially in the little lyric songs, the immediate effusion of their
feelings, wishes, and cares; whilst epic poetry, which draws her
materials from the external world, must hence, in every nation, be in
some measure modified by their different fortunes and situations. With
the exception of this manuscript and a few scattered love-songs and
tales, all we have from this early period is of a religious character,
viz. a fragment of a history of Christ's passion in rhymes, another of
a legend of the twelve apostles, and a hymn on the merits of the
Bohemian patron saint, Wenceslaus. There is also a complete Psalter in
Bohemian, with a whole series of hymns, or rather rhymed formularies,
corresponding to those sung in the catholic church, viz a _Te Deum,_,
an office for the dead, a prayer for the intercession of all saints,
etc. A piece in prose, entitled "The complaint of a lover on the banks
of the Moldau," a very rare appearance in those early times, was
formerly considered as genuine, on the authority of Linde and
Dobrovsky; but has since been proved to be spurious. The first
historians of Bohemia, Cosmas and Vincentius, born towards the middle
of the eleventh century, wrote both of them in Latin. The chronicle of
the first is still extant.

During the fourteenth century the German influence increased so much,
that the jealousy and impatience of a great part of the nation was
powerfully excited. The king kept a German body guard; German fashions
in dress and manners prevailed at the court; and even in the year
1341, when the privileges of the city of Prague were first solemnly
committed to writing, it was done in the German language. Under the
reign of Charles I, or the emperor Charles IV, for he united the two
crowns on his head, Bohemia, as we have said, reached the highest
point of its splendour. He wisely limited the privileges of the
Germans in his own kingdom; and reconciled the minds of the Bohemians
by granting to them similar privileges in the German empire. He
honoured the Bohemian language so much as to recommend expressly, in
the golden bull, to the sons of the Electors to learn it. His capital,
Prague, was like the apple of his eye; and he did all he could to add
to its embellishments and magnificence. Here he founded in the year
1348 the first Slavic university, on the plan of those of Paris and
Bologna. The influence of this institution, not merely on Bohemia, but
on Germany and indeed all Europe, was decided. From the time of its
foundation until 1410, it was the general resort for students from
among the Poles, Hungarians, Swedes, and Germans. It was doubtless the
wish to give it this very kind of universality, which induced Charles
IV, in the statutes of the institution, to allow to the Bohemians only
one suffrage in the senate, and the three others to foreigners. We
shall show in the sequel, with what jealousy this apparent preference
was received by the natives, and what a violent reaction it caused in
the Bohemian national feelings.

Experience every where teaches, that schools and academies never
enkindle the spark of genuine poetry; nay, that the erection of formal
scientific institutions is even not favourable to the free
developement of that high gift. In Bohemia, too, the fourteenth
century was indeed very productive in rhymed works; but most of them
were utterly deficient in real poetry. On the other hand, as the
natural result of a more strictly logical and clearer mode of
thinking, by reason of a scientific education, the style of the
prose writings became more cultivated, concise, and distinct; and the
direction of mind more general and universal. We find in this period
several historical works, viz. (1) A chronicle in Bohemian rhymes,
extending as far as to 1313, and finished about the year 1318, written
under king John the father of Charles IV, when the influence of the
German had reached its highest point. A glowing hatred against that
nation dictated this work, and made it for more than two hundred years
the favourite book of the Bohemian people. The name of the author is
not ascertained, although it has been usually ascribed to the canon
Dalimil Mezericky.[14] (2) Another Bohemian chronicle, written by
order of Charles IV in Latin, but translated into Bohemian by Przibik
Pulkawa. It was first published by Prochazka in the year 1786; the
Latin original in 1794. (3) Martimiani or the Roman chronicle,
translated A.D. 1400 from the German, by Benesh of Horowic. (4)
Another chronicle of the Roman emperors, translated from the Latin by
Laurentius of Brezow, the writer of several other works, some of which
were printed in the course of the following centuries.--There were
also several collections of laws; among others the oldest Bohemian
statutes, by A. of Duba, a valuable manuscript, preserved in the
imperial library of Vienna; the common and the feudal law, translated
from the Latin and kept in the library of Prague; the celebrated
_Sachsenspiegel_ or laws of Magdeburg, etc. The constant intercourse
with foreigners directed the attention of the Bohemians early to the
utility of acquiring other languages, and made the possession of their
own valuable to foreigners. We find, consequently, not less than seven
dictionaries, or vocabularies as they were called, compiled in the
course of this century; one of which, the _Bohemarius_ so called of
A.D. 1309, is even written in hexameters. As all these vocabularies
are incomplete, and better ones, founded partly upon them, have been
since compiled, they have never, so far as we know, been printed; but
are extant in several copies, and are preserved in the libraries of
Prague, Brünn, and several churches.

Poetry, during this century, took also in Bohemia the same course as
in Germany, and degenerated into loose works of fiction between prose
and verse, mostly allegorical compositions, and the basis of the
modern novel. Such are Tristram, in 9000 verses, a translation from
the German; the life of Alexander and the History of Troy from the
Latin, both of them more novel than history; and a great number of
similar works.[15] Some fragments of an heroic epic, entitled "The
Bohemian Alexander," have been recently found in the archives of
Budweis by Professor Kaubek, and published in the Journal of the
Museum. All the other poetical productions of this century may be
divided into fables, satires, and legends, or other allegorical pieces
of an ecclesiastico-didactic tendency, as may be seen even from
their titles; e.g. the Nine Joys of Mary, the Ten Commandments, the
Five Sources of Sin, etc. All are equally deficient in poetical merit.

With what thoughts the minds of reflecting men and of the reading
class were at this time chiefly occupied, and how well they were
prepared to receive, in the beginning of the following century, the
doctrines of Huss, Jerome, and Jacobellus, those teachers of a purer
system of divinity, is manifested in some measure in the theological
literature of the day. A treatise upon the great distress of the
church, written by a clergyman called John Miliez, before 1370;[16]
several others on the principal Christian virtues; a book of Christian
instruction written by Shtitny, a Bohemian nobleman, for his own
children; a translation of the Jewish Rabbi Samuel's book on the
coming of the Messiah; and several similar works,--all these seem to
indicate that the religious system of the day was no longer able to
satisfy reflecting minds. We find also that a great part of the Bible
was already extant in the Bohemian language in the second half of the
fourteenth century;[17] although not yet collected together. Several
translations of the Psalter from this period; also of the prophets
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel; and the Sunday lessons from the Gospels;
are preserved in manuscript in the libraries of Prague, Vienna, and
Oels in Silesia. Many others have doubtless perished in the lapse of
time.

SECOND PERIOD.

_From John Huss, A.D. 1400, to the general diffusion of the art of
printing, about A.D. 1500._

At the commencement of the fifteenth century, the university of Prague
was in the zenith of its splendour. Several celebrated German scholars
occupied the professors' chairs, and the average number of students
was twenty thousand. No department of science was neglected; each
faculty had its distinguished teachers; but it was theology which
excited decidedly the warmest national interest among the Bohemians
themselves; it was theology in which the Bohemians maintained the
first rank as teachers. The interest in spiritual things was no longer
confined, as in former times, to those who intended to devote
themselves to the clerical profession; it pervaded all classes, high
and low. Immediately after Wickliffe's death, an intercourse had been
opened between England and Bohemia by the marriage of a Bohemian
princess, Ann, sister of king Wenceslaus, to Richard II of England. A
young Bohemian nobleman, who had finished his studies in Prague,
repaired to Oxford, imbibed the sentiments and opinions of Wickliffe,
and on his return put a copy of all Wickliffe's writings into the
hands of John Huss, at that time one of the professors of theology at
Prague; whose mind was probably already prepared for them, and who
began to study them with great zeal and devotion. Indeed, the
pretensions of the chair of Rome, and the corruption of the clergy,
had been for some time since looked upon in Bohemia with private
disgust and open disapprobation; and when the professors Huss, Jerome,
and Jacobellus, began to declaim against monks, auricular confession,
and the infallibility of the pope, they found a responding echo in the
breasts of their hearers; and all that was novel in their doctrines,
was the boldness with which they were pronounced, and the logical
consistency with which they were justified.

Another difference of opinion, which tended greatly to augment the
excitement then reigning at the university, was the contest between
the two philosophical schools, viz. that of the Realists, who were
defended by Huss, and the Nominalists, to which nearly all the Germans
adhered. This contest became very soon a national affair; or, more
probably, had its principal origin in the unjust privileges of the
Germans and the jealousy of the Bohemians. The preference given to the
former at the foundation of the university, viz. the possession of
three out of the four suffrages in all matters determined by vote,
became anew the subject of debate, and was more especially assailed by
Huss, then rector of the university. After a whole year of resistance,
the king at length yielded. A decree of A.D. 1409 ordained that in
future the proportion should be reversed, so that the Germans should
possess only one suffrage, and the Bohemians three. For this victory
of their national pride, the university, the city, nay the whole
country, had to suffer severely. Immediately after this decision, the
famous literary emigration took place. All the German professors and
students left Prague at once. The immediate consequences of this step
were, the foundation of the universities of Leipzig, Rostock, and
Ingolstadt; and the building up of those of Heidelberg, Erfurt, and
Cracow. Prague never again became what it had been; although it
obtained a transient lustre through the victory itself, and the
eminence and martyrdom of some of its national teachers. Before we
proceed, we must devote a few words to the personal merits and
fortunes of these latter.

John Huss was born A.D. 1373, at Hussinecz, a village in the southern
part of Bohemia; from which he sometimes took the name of Huss of
Hussinecz, or John of Hussinecz. Although without property himself, he
was enabled, at the age of sixteen years, by the pecuniary assistance
of the proprietor of his native village and some other patrons, to
prosecute his studies at the university of Prague, where he
distinguished himself by his abilities and diligence. In the year 1396
he was made Master of Arts, and two years later began to lecture on
philosophical and theological subjects. In A.D. 1402 he was appointed
curate and preacher to the chapel of Bethlehem at Prague, the duties
of which office he united with his professorship. In the same year the
queen Sophia chose him for her confessor. He thus at once acquired an
influence over the people, the students, and at court. It was about
this time that he became acquainted with the writings of Wickliffe. In
the year 1407 he began publicly to oppose and preach against the
errors in doctrine and the corruption then reigning in the church. The
archbishop of Prague, Zbyniek, an illiterate and violent man, whose
ignorance had made him the laughing-stock of the students, by whom he
was called the _Alphabetarius_, or ABC doctor, collected two hundred
manuscripts of Wickliffc's writings; and, without any further
authority from the pope than his previous condemnation of them,
committed them to the flames in the archiepiscopal palace. Huss, both
in his lectures and sermons, not only blamed this act in strong terms;
but translated the _Trilogus_ and several other of Wickliffc's works
into Bohemian, distributed them among laymen and females, and caused
new Latin copies to be made. When the archbishop interdicted his
preaching in the Bohemian language, Huss not only refused to obey, but
continued to spread, by all legal means, those doctrines of Wickliffe
which he approved. At the same time the first translation of the whole
Bible--whether a collection of the parts already extant, or a new
version, we are not informed--appeared, and was distributed in
multiplied copies among the public. It is not known whether this
translation was prepared by Huss; but it is certain that he did what
he could to promote its circulation. On such proceedings the Romish
clergy could not look with tranquillity. Twice he was called to Rome;
twice he disobeyed; and at length appealed to a general council. In
consequence of his doctrines, and of some tumultuous scenes among his
followers, the excess of which he himself highly disapproved, he was
by a decree of pope John XXIII solemnly expelled from the communion of
the church. Deeming himself no longer safe at Prague under the weak
king, he retired to the territory of his friend and patron, Nicholas
of Hussinecz, where he prepared new works, some of which are among his
most powerful ones, and preached repeatedly in the open fields before
an innumerable audience. Those of his works which caused the greatest
sensation, were his treatise 'On the Church,' and a pamphlet entitled
'The Six Errors;' both of which he caused to be fixed on the walls and
gates of the chapel of Bethlehem. Both were directed against
indulgences, against the abuse of excommunication, simony,
transubstantiation, and the like; and, above all, against the
unlimited obedience required by the see of Rome; maintaining that the
Scriptures presented the only rule of faith and conduct for the
Christian.

In consequence of this conviction, the correction and distribution of
the Bohemian Bible was his constant care. In all his Bohemian writings
he paid an uncommon attention to the language, and exerted a decided
and lasting influence on it. The old Bohemian alphabet, which
consisted of forty-two letters, he arranged anew; and first settled
the Bohemian orthography according to fixed principles.[18] In order
to render it more interesting and impressive to learners, he
imitated Cyril's ingenious mode of giving to each letter the name of
some well-known Bohemian word, which had the same initial letter, e.g.
H, _hospodin_, lord; K, _kral_, king, etc. Thus he devoted his whole
life to the different means of enlightening his countrymen; and justly
considered a general cultivation of the mind as the best preparation
for receiving the truth.

Among the coadjutors of Huss, the most distinguished was Hieronymus
von Faulfisch, more generally known under the name of Jerome of
Prague; who was, like Huss, professor in the university. In erudition
and eloquence he surpassed his friend; he accorded with him in his
doctrinal views; but did not possess the mild disposition, the
moderation of conduct, for which Huss was distinguished. His hatred
against the abuses of the Romish church was so violent, that he used
to trample under his feet the relics regarded as holy by that church.
He is even said to have once ordered a monk who resisted him, to be
thrown into the river. He was so great an admirer of Wickliffe,
several of whose writings he translated into Bohemian, that even when
preaching before the emperor at Buda, he could not but interweave that
reformer's doctrines in his sermons; an imprudence which caused him to
be arrested immediately afterwards at Vienna. He obtained his liberty
in consequence of the solicitation of the university of Prague. He
wrote several works in the Bohemian language, for the instruction of
the people, hymns, pamphlets, etc. His reputation for erudition and
extraordinary powers rests, however, more on the testimony of his
cotemporaries, than on his works, of which very few remain.

Another active assistant of Huss, especially in his improvement and
distribution of the Bohemian Bible, was Jacobellus of Mies, known
under the name Jacobellus of the [sacramental] Cup, on account of his
zeal for the general introduction of the communion in both forms. He
wrote commentaries on some of the epistles, sermons, religious hymns,
etc. He too was a professor in the university of Prague.

In the year 1414 Huss was summoned to appear before the Council of
Constance, to exculpate himself before the united theologians of all
the Christian nations of Europe. Without the least reluctance, and
rather with rejoicing at the opportunity of justifying himself from
the extravagant charges brought against him by his enemies, and of
demonstrating publicly the truth of his doctrines, he obeyed this
call. Provided with a safe conduct from the emperor Sigismund, and
accompanied moreover by several Bohemian noblemen at the express order
of king Wenceslaus, he undertook the journey without fear for his
personal safety, and arrived on the fourth of November at Constance.
Here, before he was permitted to appear in the presence of the general
Council, he had to undergo several private audiences before a few
cardinals; at one of which, about three weeks after his arrival, he
was arrested, cast into prison, and without being tried or even heard,
kept more than _six months_. When the news of this treachery reached
Bohemia, it was felt by the whole people as a national insult. Three
petitions, signed by nearly the whole body of the nobility, were in
the course of time successively tendered to the Council; and as the
two first were without avail, the third was accompanied by one to the
emperor, in which he was reminded of his broken word, in terms so
strong,--he having pledged his imperial honour for the safety of
Huss,--that at length the 5th of June was fixed for a public
hearing. Here however every attempt of Huss, not merely to justify
himself, but even to speak, was frustrated by the most indecent and
tumultuous clamour of the assembled clergy, who loaded him with
invectives and reproaches. In the two following audiences he was
indeed allowed a hearing, at the special demand of the emperor, who
had been disgusted and offended by the indecent behaviour of the
Council. Huss was now permitted to justify himself at large upon all
the forty articles brought against him, most of them founded on his
writings by the frequent aid of the most unfair deduction; but
although he exculpated himself completely from some of the charges,
yet he himself acknowledged so many others, that the Council could
only be confirmed in its previous determination to condemn him as an
obstinate heretic. A month was allowed him, to give in his final
answer. During this time cardinals and bishops tried their eloquence
to persuade him to recant; especially at the instigation of the
emperor, who wished to save his life on account of his own pledged
honour. But all these efforts could not move the faith nor firmness of
this pious and heroic man; and on the 6th of July, A.D. 1415, he was
unanimously condemned, ignominiously degraded from the office of a
priest, and burned alive the same day. His ashes were thrown into the
Rhine.[19]

His friend Jerome of Prague, on hearing of his dangerous situation,
hurried to Constance, to assist and support him, without even waiting
for a safe conduct from the emperor or Council. In the vicinity of
Constance he stopped, and tried all possible means to obtain some
assurance for his personal safety. Not succeeding in this, he felt
himself compelled by prudence to return, although slowly and
reluctantly, to Bohemia. But on the road, in consequence of a dispute
in which he became engaged with some bigoted priests, he was arrested
by the duke of Salzbach and sent to Constance, where the same scenes
were repeated before the Council, as in the case of Huss. At his first
appearance, a thousand voices exclaimed: Away with him! burn him, burn
him! It is most melancholy to read in the reports of the time, that
even this strong and pious man could have been terrified into
temporary submission; not by the prospect of death, which he met
gladly, but by the horrors of a lonely and protracted imprisonment in
a noxious dungeon. But his fortitude did not long abandon him;
tortured by his own conscience, he solemnly announced at the next
audience his recantation; and declared, that of all the sins he had
committed, he repented of none more than his apostasy from the
doctrines he had maintained. In consequence of this he was subjected
to the same condemnation as his illustrious friend; and met his
painful death with the same magnanimity and resignation. He was burnt
the 30th of May, 1416.

The behaviour of both these eminent men; the Christian mildness with
which they bore the infamous treatment of their enemies; the
generosity with which they forgave their persecutors; the patience,
nay cheerfulness of Huss, when during his imprisonment severe bodily
sufferings united with the persecutions of his adversaries to make his
life a heavy burden; the magnanimity and fortitude with which both of
them submitted to their final fate, and maintained the truth of their
religious opinions until the very moment of an excruciating death,
praising the Lord with soul and voice; all this presents one of the
most affecting and at the same time elevating pictures which the
history of martyrs has to exhibit. The eloquence of Jerome made a
powerful impression on his enemies; and there were some moments during
his trial, when even his judges wished to save his life. The
celebrated Poggio Bracciolini, one of the revivers of Italian
literature, happened to be present at the trial and execution of
Jerome; and although not agreeing with him, or rather being
indifferent in point of religion, the eloquence, magnanimity and
amiable deportment of the unfortunate martyr, excited his sympathy and
admiration in an uncommon degree. This is manifested in his letters to
Leonardo Aretius; who in his reply found it advisable to warn his
friend, not to show too much warmth in this matter.[20]

The instigators of these cruel acts, when they kindled the faggots by
which these two martyrs died, did not anticipate that the fire they
had lighted would spread over a whole country, and carry horror and
devastation through the half of Germany. The war by which the
disciples of Huss avenged him, was one of the most bloody and
destructive known in history. The news of his death, when it reached
Bohemia, touched the heart of every individual like an electric spark.
But this is not our province. Keeping only our own object, the fate of
the language and literature in view, we must refer the reader to the
historical accounts of this distressing period, and limit ourselves to
the mention of those events only, which had an immediate influence on
these two topics.

Under the guidance of Nicholas of Hussineccz, the friend and patron of
Huss, in whom even his enemies acknowledged more a defender of the
Reformers, than a persecutor of the Catholics; of Zhizhka of Trocznow,
a Bohemian knight of great valour, but disgraced by cruelty; and,
after the death of these two, under Procopius, formerly a clergyman;
the Hussites carried their victorious arms throughout all Bohemia,
into Silesia, Franconia, Austria, and Saxony; and made these unhappy
countries the theatre of the most cruel devastations. If, divided into
several parties, as they were, they were thus powerful, they would
have been twice as strong, had they been united in the true spirit of
Huss. But even as early as A.D. 1421 dissensions arose among them; and
they finally split into several sects and parties, who mutually hated
each other even more than they did the Romanists. Among these the
Calixtins or Utraquists, whose principal object was to obtain the
sacrament in both forms; and the Taborites, who insisted on a complete
reform of the church; were the two principal. The Calixtins
comprehended the more moderate of the nobility and the wealthy
citizens of Prague; between them and the Romanists a compact was
concluded at Basle, in A.D. 1434, by which a conditional religious
liberty was granted to them, and they acknowledged the emperor
Sigismund as their sovereign; the weak king Wenceslaus having died in
1419. The Taborites were unable to resist any longer the united power
of both parties. They partly dispersed; the rest united in the year
1457, in separate communities, and called themselves United Brethren.
Under the severest trials of oppression and persecution, the number of
these congregations, the form of which was modelled after the
primitive apostolic churches, rose in less than fifty years to two
hundred. In the middle of the sixteenth century, numerous emigrations
to Prussia and Poland took place, where a free toleration was secured
to them. In the beginning of the seventeenth century, their
communities in Bohemia were finally dissolved. From the remnant of
these persecuted Christians, who were called by the Germans, Bohemian
or Moravian Brethren, has sprung the present community of United
Brethren, often called in English, Moravians, which was founded at
Hernhut in 1722, at first under the protection and ultimately under
the patronage and direction of count Zinzendorf.

The consequences of the barbarous measures of the Council of Constance
became immediately visible. Even the common people began to show an
intense interest in the numberless theological pamphlets, which were
published in Bohemia and Moravia for or against Huss. Among the
former, one written by a female deserves to be distinguished. The
copies of the Bohemian Bible became greatly multiplied; many of them
were made by females: and Æneas Sylvius takes occasion to praise the
biblical erudition of the women of the Taborites, whilst the abbot
Stephen of Dolan in Moravia complains of their meddling in
ecclesiastical affairs. In the revision of the text of the Bohemian
Scriptures, the clergy were indefatigable. From 1410 to 1488, when the
Bible was first printed, at least four recensions of the whole Bible
can be distinguished, and several more of the New Testament. The
different parties of the Hussites were united in a warm partiality for
their own language; the Taborites began as early as 1423 to hold their
service in Bohemian. After the compact of 1434, the Calixtins also
attempted to introduce the mass in their own language, an innovation
which caused new disturbances and contests. Meanwhile the language of
the country assumed gradually even among the Romanists its natural
rights; the privileges of the city of Prague, the laws of the
painters' guild, the statutes of the miners, were translated into
Bohemian. At the session of the Estates in Moravia in 1480, the Latin
was exchanged for the Bohemian; in Bohemia itself not before 1495. The
knowledge of the Bohemian language, which Albert duke of Bavaria had
acquired at the court of king Wenceslaus, where he was educated, had
a decided influence on the Bohemian Estates, when in 1441 they offered
him their crown. Under George Podiebrad, diebrad, a Bohemian by birth,
this language even became that of the court. After the death of
George, one of the reasons which led to the election of Vladislaus,
king of Poland, was, that the Bohemians "could hope to see elevated
through him the glory of the Bohemian nation and of the Slavic
language." [21] Under this king all ordinances and decrees were issued
in the Bohemian language, which gained prodigiously in pliancy and
extent by the application of it to different uses. The most favourable
influence on its formation, however, was effected towards the close of
the fifteenth century, by the custom which began to prevail of
studying the classics, and of translating them with all the fidelity
of which the idiom was capable. Thus fostered by judicious application
and patriotic feeling, the Bohemian language approached, with rapid
steps, the period of its _golden age_,--a time, indeed, in a political
respect, of oppression, war, and devastation; but affording a
gratifying proof, how powerfully moral means may counteract physical
causes.

At the head of the theological literature of this period may be named
the Life of Huss, written by P. Mladienowicz. Although, strictly
speaking, not a theological book, yet this character was in some
measure impressed upon it by the custom which prevailed for a time, of
causing it to be read aloud in the churches, in order to communicate
to the people all the circumstances of the martyr's death.
Mladienowicz, acting as a notary at Constance, had been an eye-witness
of the whole transaction. Among the Romish theological writers of the
day, Hilarius Litomierzicky, ob. 1467, Rosenberg bishop of Breslau,
Simon of Tishnow, and others, wrote against the practice of communion
in both forms. But they were inferior to their adversaries in talent,
and still more in productiveness. Rokycana, archbishop of the
Calixtins, ob. 1471, Koranda, Mirosh, and others, defended their right
to the sacramental cup; and exerted their pens in doctrinal
controversies with the other sects. The Bohemian Brethren, Paleczek,
Procopius, Simon, Mirzinsky, and others, wrote interpretations of
portions of the Scriptures, polemical pamphlets, religious hymns,
apologies, and the like, partly printed, and partly preserved in
manuscript. In the contests of the different parties, the use of
weapons of every description was regarded as lawful; and among them,
satire and irony were employed with much skill and dexterity by the
Hussites.[22] Uricz of Kalcnicz wrote a satirical letter from Lucifer
to Lew of Rozhmital. Bohuslav of Czechticz partly wrote and partly
compiled the work, "Mirror of all Christendom," with many remarkable
illustrations.[23] The Bohemian brother, Chelcicky, ob. 1484, called
also the Bohemian doctor, because he did not understand Latin, and of
course neither Greek nor Hebrew, undertook, nevertheless, besides
several other works, to write an interpretation of the Sunday Lessons
of the Gospels. His most popular book, called _Kopyta_, i.e. "The
Shoe-last," (being himself a shoemaker by trade,) which was much read
by the common people, is no longer extant. A pamphlet of Martin
Lupacz, ob. 1468, called "The Sprinkling-brush," was likewise in the
hands of every body. This clergyman, however, acquired better claims
on the gratitude of his cotemporaries, by a careful revision of the
New Testament, which he undertook with the aid of several learned
friends. Indeed, both among clergymen and laymen, there was an ardent
desire for the right understanding of the Scriptures; which induced
many individuals, who were not satisfied with the existing Bohemian
translations, to undertake the task themselves anew.

Out of this period alone the manuscripts of thirty-three copies of the
whole Bible, and twenty-two of the New Testament, are still extant;
partly copied from each other, partly translated anew; all, however,
having been made from the Vulgate.[24] The Bohemian versions made from
the original languages belong to the following period.

Although religion filled the minds of the learned during this period
more than in any other, it did not absorb their interest so entirely
as to occupy them exclusively. It could not, however, be expected,
that in the midst of such struggles, both political and religious, the
minds of men could elevate themselves so far above their
circumstances, as to look at any science or art in the light of its
independent value. Poetry, at least, with a few exceptions, was only
regarded as the handmaid of religion. We find many books of legends,
biographies of the fathers and saints, both prose and rhyme, written
partly by Romish, partly by Hussite writers. The doctrines of Huss did
not, like those of Luther a century later, shake the belief in saints.
Dobrovsky mentions a very ancient printed work of 1480, in which the
letters of Huss, his life by Mladionowicz, and the letter of Poggio on
the execution of Jerome, are annexed to a _Passional_, as such
collections of the lives and sufferings of the saints are called.
There is also an abundance of Taboritic war-songs; many of them
replete with life and fire. These appear to have been partly founded
on ancient Bohemian popular songs; for there are passages in them
which are also to be found in the old chronicles. Altered to suit the
existing circumstances, their effect must have been the more powerful
by association. This period was also rich in religious hymns; most of
them translated from the Bible as literally as the rhyme would permit.
But no form of poetry was more used, and none operated more strongly
on the minds of the people, than the satirical ballads, with which the
streets and alleys every where resounded. All these productions are
only remarkable, as characteristic memorials of the age. Hynck of
Podiebrad, fourth son of king George, who was born A.D. 1452, a highly
accomplished and amiable man, is named as one of the most
distinguished among the Bohemian poets of the age.

Politics, too, united with religion. Stibor of Cimburg, a patriotic
and distinguished nobleman, wrote in 1467 an ingenious work in the
form of a novel, "On the goods of the Clergy;" Waleczowsky wrote on
the vices and hypocrisy of the clergy; and Zidek, in 1471,
instructions on government. All these books were dedicated to king
George, and the latter work was even written at his instigation. Hagck
of Hodielin, and Wlezek, between 1413 and 1457, wrote strategetical
works. Marco Polo's description of the East, and Mandeville's Travels,
were translated from the Latin. Kabatnik, J. Lobkowicz, and Bakalarz,
wrote descriptions of Palestine between 1490 and 1500; the two first
in books of travels. Mezyhor wrote a journal of the travels of Lew of
Rozhmital, whom he accompanied as jester through Europe and a part of
Asia. Collections of statutes, of the decrees of diets, of judicial
decisions, and of other documents, were made by patriotic and
sometimes eminent men; and those merely extant in Latin were carefully
translated into Bohemian.[25] Thus they gathered materials for future
historians, although in their own day the field of history was but
poorly cultivated, or at least with no more than common ability; for,
as to quantity, there is no want. Procopius, following out the example
of Dalimil, wrote a new rhymed chronicle; Bartosh of Drahenicz wrote a
chronicle extending from 1419 to 1443, in barbarous Latin, to which he
added some notes in Bohemian. Several other chronicles, the authors of
which are not known, serve as continuations of those of the preceding
century, which were devoted to the affairs of their own country. The
above-mentioned Zidck, on the other hand, undertook to write a
universal history, after the division of time then customary, into six
ages. This book forms the third part of his great work, "Instructions
on Government," to which we have above alluded. In this work the
author seizes every opportunity to lecture the king, to give him
advice, and to rebuke him. According to Dobrovsky, his boldness not
unfrequently degenerates into coarseness and insolence. It is an
amusing reproach, which among others he brings against the king, that
he had net one camel, whilst Job had six thousand. The same individual
wrote also a large work in Latin, a kind of Cyclopædia, the manuscript
of which is in the library of the university of Cracow.

We finish the history of this period with a short account of the state
of medicine and natural sciences in Bohemia. It is true, that the
greater part of the learned men who wrote on these subjects, preferred
the use of the Latin language. But many of them were in the habit of
making at least Bohemian extracts or abridgments of their most popular
works, or sometimes had the whole of them translated by their pupils.
Among the medical writers of this time, Christian Prachatitzky a
clergyman, John Czerny and Claudian Bohemian brethren, Albik, and
Gallus, must be mentioned; the two latter wrote only in Latin.

This section of the Bohemian literature is particularly rich in
herbals. Several works of instruction in botany were also written. A
manuscript of 1447, "On the inoculation of Trees," may be mentioned
here, although belonging rather to the department of agriculture.

The Bohemian language, although improving and evidently rising in
esteem with every lustrum of the fifteenth century, had however not
yet supplanted the Latin. Many of the most eminent among the learned
of this period preferred still to write in Latin: as Hieronymus
Balbus, Bohuslav, Hassenstein of Lobkowic, Shlechta, Olomucius, and a
number of others; who all contributed nevertheless to elevate the
glory of the Bohemian name, and could not but exert a powerful
influence on the nation.

In respect to the date of the introduction of printing into Bohemia,
the first regular printing establishment at Prague is not older than
A.D. 1487. Several Bohemian books, however, were printed before this
time by travelling workmen. In regard to the first work printed in the
Bohemian language historians are not entirely agreed. According to
Jungmann,[26] a letter from Huss to Jakaubek, of 1459. was the first
specimen of Bohemian printing; the above-mentioned chronicle of Troy
of 1468 the second; and the New Testament of 1475 the third. According
to Dobrovsky, the New Testament of 1475 is the earliest printed work
in Bohemian. From that year to 1488, only seven Bohemian works appear
to have been issued from the press; among which was a Psalter and
another New Testament. In 1488, after the foundation of a regular
printing office, the whole Bohemian Bible was printed for the first
time; in the same year the History of Troy again, and the Roman
chronicle; and in the following year the first Bohemian almanac, and
the Bible of Kuttenberg. The subsequent editions belong, as to time,
to the following period; but are given in the note below.[27]

THIRD PERIOD.

_Golden age of the Bohemian Literature. From the diffusion of
printing, about A.D._ 1500, _to the battle at the White Mountain,
A.D._ 1620.

It is chiefly for the sake of clearness and convenience, that writers
on the literary history of Bohemia separate this period from the
former; in its character and its genius it was entirely the same. What
the Bohemians had _acquired_ in the one, they _possessed_ in the
other; what they had only aimed at in the former, they reached in the
latter; what had been the property of a few, was now augmented by an
abundant harvest in their diligent hands, and enriched a multitude.
But the objects, the stamp, the character, of both centuries were
essentially the same. Literary cultivation, which during the sixteenth
century was every where else monopolized by the clergy and a few
distinguished individuals, was now in Bohemia the common property of
the people; who for the most part embraced the evangelical doctrines
in their manifold, though but little differing shades. But although
religion was to them the object of chief interest, it was yet far from
occupying their minds exclusively. And this is the point, in which the
history of the Bohemian Reformation materially differs from that of
some other countries. Luther's elevated mind did not indeed give room
to narrow prejudices against those flowers of life, with which a kind
Creator has adorned this earth. But almost all the other Reformers
were led, either by a one-sided zeal or by circumstances, to show
themselves decidedly opposed to the cultivation of elegant literature
and the fine arts; they destroyed or banished pictures, music,
statuary, and every thing which they could in any way regard as
worldly temptations to allure men from the only source of truth and
knowledge; nay, they sometimes went so far as to look at science and
art in themselves only in the light of handmaids to religion; and to
deem a devotion to them without such reference, as sinful worldliness.
Of such narrowness we do not find a trace in the fathers of the
Bohemian Reformation, who were themselves men of high intellectual
cultivation; and even their most zealous followers kept themselves
nearly free from it. If, as we have seen in the preceding period,
political, poetical, and religious subjects were merged in each other,
it was only the necessary result of the confusion occasioned by the
struggles of the time. Where one object is predominant, all others
must naturally become subordinate; but wherever that which appears
amiable only as the free tendency of the whole soul, is exacted as a
duty, a spiritual despotism is to be feared; of which we find very
little in the history of Bohemian literature. The classics never were
studied with more attention and devotion, were never imitated with
more taste. Italy, the cradle of fine arts, and then the seat of
general cultivation, was never visited more frequently by the Bohemian
nobility, than when three-fourths of the nation adhered to the
Protestant Church. At the very time, too, when the Bohemian
Protestants had to watch most closely their religious liberties, and
to defend them against the encroachments of a treacherous court, they
did not deem it a desertion of the cause of religion to unite with the
same Romanists, whose theological doctrines they contested, in their
labours in the fields of philology, astronomy, and natural philosophy.

The extent of the Bohemian national literature increased during the
sixteenth century so rapidly; the number of writers augmented so
prodigiously; and the opportunities for literary cultivation presented
to the reading public, by the multiplication of books through the
press, became so frequent; that the difficulty of giving a condensed
yet distinct picture of the time is greatly augmented. A sketch of the
political situation of the country may serve as a back-ground, in
order by its gloomy shades to render still brighter the light of a
free mental development.

After the death of George Podiebrad in 1471, the Bohemians--or rather
the catholic party, after the pope had excommunicated this
prince--elected Vladislaus, a Polish prince, for their king; who, like
his son and successor Louis, united on his head the crowns of Hungary
and Bohemia. The different evangelical denominations were during these
reigns in some measure tolerated; except that from time to time a
persecution of one or another sect broke out, and again after a year
or two was dropped, when the minds of the community had become
somewhat pacified. It is a melancholy truth for the evangelical
Christian, that at this time the most violent persecutors were to be
found among the Calixtins or Utraquists. During the first years of the
sixteenth century, persecution was mostly directed against the United
Brethren and their writings. The latter were burned; the former
banished; until, driven from place to place, they found an asylum in
the territory of some high-minded nobleman, where they established
themselves anew; and then after some years perhaps a new persecution
began. Of a more revolting and bloody description were the measures
directed principally against the Lutherans in the years 1522-26; in
which the most shocking tortures were employed, and several faithful
Lutherans and Picardites were burned alive. During all this time the
Romanists and Calixtins exercised a severe censorship; and it was
ordained, that every individual who brought a newly printed book into
the city of Prague, must submit it to the revision of the consistory.
These laws, however, were no better observed than all similar
ordinances, when directly in opposition to the spirit of the age.
Meanwhile the Calixtins and Romanists, although writing against all
others, had their own mutual contests. When, however, the former
caused a new edition of the Bible to be printed in the year 1506,[28]
it was unanimously adopted by the Roman Catholics also; who, as is
amusing to observe, did not notice that a wood cut is appended to the
sixth chapter of the Apocalypse, in which the pope is represented in
the flames of hell.

In the year 1526 king Louis died in the battle of Mohaez.

According to a matrimonial treaty, he was succeeded by his
brother-in-law Ferdinand, archduke of Austria and brother of the
emperor Charles V. This prince was received by the Bohemians with
reluctance as their king, and only on the condition, insisted on by
the Estates, that he should subscribe the compact of Basle, by which
their religious liberties were secured to them. So long as Ferdinand
was occupied in Hungary against the Turks, all went well in Bohemia;
but when, in the war which followed the league of Smalkalde (1547),
the Protestants of this country refused to fight against their
brethren, a new and unremitted persecution began against all, who
could in any way be comprised under the name of _sectarians_. The
compact of Basle was strictly only in favour of the Utraquists or
Calixtins; the Lutherans and Taborites, or, as they were then called,
United Brethren, as also the Picardites and Grubenheimer, were
considered as _sects_, and did not belong to the indulged.[29] Their
churches were shut up; their preachers arrested; and all who did not
prefer to exchange their religion for the Roman Catholic, were
compelled to emigrate. The scene altered under Maximilian II,
Ferdinand's successor, a friend of the Reformation, and in every
respect one of the most excellent princes who ever took upon himself
the responsibility of directing the destinies of a nation; to use
Schaffarik's happy metaphor, the benefits of his administration fell
on the field, which Ferdinand's strength had ploughed, like a mild and
fertilizing rain. During his life, and the first ten years of his son
Rudolph's reign, Bohemia was in peace: the different denominations
were indulged; literature flourished, and the Bohemian language was at
the summit of its glory. But we regret to add, that the Protestants,
instead of improving this fortunate period by uniting to acquire a
legal foundation for their church, instead of a mere indulgence
depending on the will of the sovereign, lived in constant mutual
warfare, and attempted only to supplant each other. An ordinance in
1586 against the Picardites, a name under which the Bohemian Brethren
were then comprehended; and still more the strict censorship
introduced in 1605; first aroused them to unite their strength against
oppression; and in 1609 they compelled the emperor to subscribe the
celebrated _Literæ Imperatoriæ_, or edict, by which full liberty in
matters of religion was secured to them. During the rest of this
period, the Protestants remained the ruling party. The university of
Prague, by the side of which from A.D. 1556 another of the Jesuits
existed, was by that treaty given entirely into their hands. This
institution, although in consequence of the foundation of so many
similar schools it never recovered completely from the shock it
received in 1410, and though for more than a hundred years it had been
decidedly on the decline, yet rose in reputation towards the middle of
the sixteenth century; and among the professors who filled its chairs,
there were always celebrated names. Among the schools of a less
elevated rank, those of the Bohemian Brethren at Bunzlau, Prerow, and
other places, were distinguished.

Rudolph was a great patron of literature and science; and was quite
favourably disposed towards the Bohemian language. Nearly two hundred
writers were numbered under his reign; and among these many ladies and
gentlemen of his court, of which Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and other
scientific foreigners were the chief ornaments. Zeal for the
cultivation of their mother tongue, seemed to be the point in which
all religious denominations in Bohemia united. But during this
century, as in the preceding one, the language of the country existed
only side by side with the Latin; which was still preferred by many,
for the sake of a more general reputation. It became the chief object
of other eminent men, to make their countrymen acquainted with the
classics in a Bohemian dress; and to improve the language by a strict
imitation of Latin and Greek forms. Among these a rich and noble
citizen of Prague named George Hruby must be first named;[30] also
Pisecky, ob. 1511, who translated Isoerates' Epistle to Demonicus;
Nicholas Konacz and Ulric of Welensky, the translators of Lucian;
Krupsky, of Plutarch; Ginterod, of Xenophon's Cyropaedia. Kocyn,
celebrated for his eloquence and other gifts, translated the
ecclesiastical history of Eusebius and Cassiodorus; Orliczny, the
Jewish wars of Josephus, several of the Latin classics, etc.

When we consider this general zeal for the cultivation of the
language, it is a matter of surprise that the first Bohemian grammar
should not be older than A.D. 1533. Its author was Benesh Optat, who
also translated Erasmus' Paraphrase of the New Testament. Another
grammar was published by Beneshowsky in 1577, a third by the Slovak
Benedicti in 1603. But the individual to whom is justly assigned the
chief merit in regard to the language, is Weleslawin, ob. 1599,
professor of history in the university of Prague, and the proprietor
of the greatest printing establishment in Bohemia. Partly by his own
works, original and translated, and among these three dictionaries for
different purposes; partly by the encouragement he gave to other
writers, and the activity with which he caused works whether old or
new deserving of a greater circulation, to be printed; he acquired a
most powerful influence among his cotemporaries.

The field however which was cultivated with the most diligence, was
that of theology; and fortunately, during this whole period, with an
equal measure of talent and zeal. The writings of the Bohemian
Brethren, Thomas Prelavsky, Laurentius Krasonicky, and more
especially of Lucas, belong partly to the former, partly to the
present period. The latter was a most productive writer; and as being
one of their best scholars, he was generally chosen to answer the
charges made against the United Brethren, in learned and elaborate
pamphlets.[31] Several of the productions of the Brethren, mentioned
in the former period, were written and printed in the beginning of
this. Among these in 1508, Procopius' question. "Whether it is right
for a Christian to compel infidels or heretics to embrace the true
faith?" is remarkable, as one of the earliest instances in which this
position of intolerance was made the subject of public debate, or at
least answered in the negative. In 1563 the New Testament was first
translated directly from the Greek, by J. Blahoslav, another
president of the Bohemian Brethren, a man of profound erudition. The
first translation of the whole Bible from the original languages, did
not take place until several years later. The first edition of this
latter splendid work, for which the patriotic and pious baron John of
Zherotin expressly founded a printing office in his castle of Kralicz
in Moravia, and advanced money for all the necessary expenses, was
printed in 1579. This version is still considered, in respect to
language, as a model; and in respect to typography, as unsurpassed.
On the fidelity of the translation and the value of the commentary,
Schaffarik remarks, that "they contain a great deal of that which,
two hundred years later, the learned _coryphaei_ of exegesis in our
day have exhibited to the world as their own profound discoveries."
The translators were Albert Nicolai, Lucas Helic, Joh. Aeneas, George
Stryc, E. Coepolla, J. Ephraim, P. Jessenius, and J. Capito.--G.
Stryc wrote also a good translation of the Psalms in rhyme, and
several theological works. J. Wartowsky likewise translated the Old
Testament from the Hebrew and left it in manuscript; but his version
has never been published. Of his translation of Erasmus' Paraphrase
of the Gospels, only that of the Gospel of Matthew has been printed.
Among the Bohemian Brethren, Augusta surnamed Pileator, ob. 1572,
Stranensky, the above-mentioned Blahoslav, Zamrsky, ob. 1592, were
distinguished by great erudition. They and many others wrote
voluminous works on theological subjects, e.g. biblical researches,
systematic divinity, sermons, etc. Several of these writers, and also
many others, were authors of numerous religious hymns; among which
not a few are still considered as unsurpassed in any language.
Nicholas Klaudian, who was at the same time physician, printer, and
theologian, wrote an apology in favour of the Brethren. This
individual, who, besides being the printer and editor of several
medical works written by himself and others, was in part the
translator of Seneca and Lactantius, has further the merit of having
published in 1518 the first map of Bohemia. Luther's sermons and
other writings were translated into Bohemian; and the religious
affairs of Germany began to excite an intense interest among all
classes.

The theological productions of this period written by Roman
Catholics--among which we distinguish the names of Pishek surnamed
Scribonius, Makawsky, and the Jesuits Sturm and Hostowin--are mostly
of a polemical character; while some also are translations of the
fathers, especially of Augustine's writings; or original ascetic
productions in the form of allegorical novels. Among the Utraquists
several individuals were celebrated as preachers; above all Ctibor
Kotwa, who was called the Bohemian Cicero, and Dicastus Mirkowsky.
Others wrote theological treatises and interpretations of portions of
the Scriptures. Such were Beransky, author of an interpretation of
Daniel, of the gospels, and the epistles; Orliczny, or, as he is
called in Latin, Aquilinas, known chiefly as a translator of the
classics;[32] Turnowsky, a Slovak by birth; Bydzhowsky, Bilegowsky the
writer of a Bohemian church history and of a history of the Hussites
and Picardites; Rwaczowsky, Zeletawsky, Tesak, author of many popular
religious hymns; Palma, who published towards twenty theological
works; Peshina, Maurenin, and Borowsky, who wrote interpretations of
the epistles and gospels; Wrbensky, author of a biblical Synopsis, a
Harmony, etc.; Rosacius Sushishky, distinguished as a Latin poet;
Martin of Drazow, Jacobides Stribrsky, Jakesius Prerowsky. and
others.[33]

There are few among the theological writers of this century,--of whom
we have named perhaps the twentieth part,--who have not left at least
ten volumes of their own writings; while many have reached twice, and
some thrice the number. More than one third of the printed works in
this department contain sermons. The eloquence of the pulpit acquired
a high degree of cultivation; and besides the two Utraquist preachers
mentioned above, many other names were celebrated among them. In
respect to erudition, however, the Brethren occupied decidedly the
first rank. In religious hymns all sects were equally productive; and
there are, as we have mentioned already, not a few among them of a
high excellence. To the names of spiritual poets alluded to in the
preceding paragraphs, we may here add the following: T. Sobeslawsky
Reshatko, Gryllus, Herstein of Radowesic, Horsky, Mart. Pisecky,
Taborsky, Sylvanus a Slovak by birth and called by way of eminence
_Poeta Bohemicus_, Chmelowecz, Mart. Philomusa, Karlsberg, Hanush; and
more especially Lomnicky, _poeta laureatus_, who is regarded as the
first Bohemian poet of that age.

These names comprise also nearly all we have to say of the state of
Bohemian poetry in general. Not that some of them did not occasionally
desert the sacred muse, and compose specimens of secular poetry; for
some of Lomnicky's larger and most celebrated works belong to this
class, as may be seen by the titles; e.g. 'The arrows of Cupid,' 'The
golden Bag,' etc.[34]

But every thing of real poetical value is of a religious character;
and bears too much the stamp of its age, to be relished at the present
day. The secular poets of the time wrote, with a few exceptions, in
Latin.

Among the historians of merit we may name the following writers of
Bohemian history: Hagek of Liboczan, Kuthen, Procopius Lupacz,
Paprocky a Pole who however wrote some of his works in the Bohemian
language, Racownicky, and the above-mentioned Weleslawin and
Bilegowsky. In respect to universal history, or that of other lands,
we find the names of Placel, Sixt von Ottersdorf, Konstantinovicz,
Kocin, and others. This period is equally rich in valuable books of
travels. Count Wratislaw of Mitrowicz, ob. 1635, described his
interesting embassy from Vienna to Constantinople; C. Harant, a
courtier and statesman, published his travels in Egypt and Palestine;
Prefat of Wlkanow likewise gave a description of his journey from
Prague to Palestine; Charles of Zherotin, the son of the munificent
patron of the United Brethren, and like him their protector and
friend, left letters and a description of his travels.

As lawyers, orators, and political writers, the following names may be
adduced: Baron Kocin of Kocinet, whom we have had occasion to mention
repeatedly; the counts Sternberg, Wratislaw of Mitrowicz, and Slawata;
the latter known as one of the persons thrown from a lofty window of
the castle by the violence of count Thurn--one of the introductory
scenes of the thirty years' war; Baron Budowecz of Budow, equally
excellent as a Christian and a statesman, the protector and public
defender of the Bohemian Brethren, and faithful to his religious
conviction until his last breath; Christopher Harant, another nobleman
of great merit, whom we have mentioned above as a traveller in the
East. Both these last were executed in 1621. Writers of merit in the
department of jurisprudence, were also the counsellors Ulric of
Prostiborz under Ferdinand I, Wolf of Wresowicz, the chancellor
Koldin, and others. But on topics like these, by far the greater
number wrote only in Latin; and these of course we do not mention
here.

Writers on the medical and natural sciences we cannot well separate;
since, in most cases, the same individuals distinguished themselves in
the departments of medicine, astronomy, and mathematics. The
following, along with many others, are named with distinction: Th.
Hagek, body physician of the emperors Maximilian and Rudolph, and a
celebrated astronomer; Zhelotyn, author of medical and mathematical
works; Zaluzhansky, physician and naturalist, who anticipated Linnæus
in his doctrine of the sexual distinction and impregnation of plants;
P. Codicillus, historian, philosopher, theologian, and astronomer, who
wrote on all these different subjects; Huber von Reisenbach, a
physician and rector of the university of Prague; Shud, a celebrated
astronomer; and many more.[35]

The number of books printed during this period cannot well be
ascertained; since by far the greater number were burned, or otherwise
destroyed, in the dreadful catastrophe which signalized its close.
Prague alone had eighteen printing offices; and fourteen more existed
in other places in Bohemia and Moravia. Besides these, many Bohemian
books were printed at Venice, Nürnberg, Wittenberg, and some in
Holland and Poland.

In 1617, the emperor Matthias succeeded in obtaining the crown of
Bohemia for his nephew Ferdinand, archduke of Austria. This was the
signal for the Romanists, in spite of the _Literæ Imperatoriæ_ of the
emperor Rudolph, to make new attempts for the suppression of the
Protestants. The Estates belonging to this denomination brought their
complaint before the emperor, who gave them no redress; and thus the
spark was kindled into flames, which for thirty years continued to
rage throughout all Germany. At the death of Matthias in 1619, the
Bohemians refused to receive Ferdinand II as their king; and elected
the Protestant palatine Frederic V, a generous prince, but incapable
of affording them support. The battle at the White Mountain, near
Prague, in 1620, decided the destiny of Bohemia. Twenty-seven of the
leaders of the insurrection were publicly executed; sixteen were
exiled or condemned to prison for life; their property, as also the
possessions of seven hundred and twenty-eight noblemen and knights,
who had voluntarily acknowledged themselves to have taken part in the
insurrection, and of twenty-nine others who had fled, was wholly
confiscated; and thus the amount of fifty-three millions of rix
dollars transferred from Protestant to Romish hands. The _Literce
Imperatorice_ were annulled; the Protestant religion in Bohemia
abolished; and that kingdom declared a purely catholic hereditary
monarchy. All non-catholic preachers were banished; thirty thousand
families, who preferred exile to a change of their religion,
emigrated. Among them 185 were noble families; the others artists,