

5SI 



BOHEMIAN LITERATURE. 



i an pirn, I sliall purctiase once ; futiirnm Jurat hum 

 tor instance, butiu kupowati, \ shall be purch:i>ing 

 for a long tinu' ; fut. jreijventathum budu A-ujmiru- 

 irati, 1 slull purchase several times; and/r/f. ilera- 

 tit-iim btidii kiiftowuwali, I .shall be purchasing very 

 often. Not less manifold in signification, and e|ii;illy 

 subtile in the determination ot time, are the partici- 

 ples and the participial construction-. The deter- 

 mination ot the six iind the number by the final 

 syllable of the participle gives the Czechish language 

 no small preference above others. The Bohemian can 

 express hiiiiv It as elegantly and politely, and at the 

 same time as concisely, as the Greek with his opta- 

 tor instance, tirr/ialo to/io, she may let it go ; 

 K-inil, let him do it. The small, connective particles 

 nt'-pi .-c!i. \vliicli the Hohemian has, in common with 

 the i in-eL, iiui-t be considered as so many touches 

 and shadings, by which the whole idea and feeling is 

 more distinctly expressed. The Greek xx pi*, yf, 

 )i, , &c. agree with t lie Bohemian ele pak, wsa/c, It, 

 z , t' ; only "the three latter are always affixed to a 

 word. Finally, the free, unrestrained arrangement 

 of the words contributes much to perspicuity, as the 

 llohemian is less fettered than any of the oilier mo- 

 dern languages to a particular construction. 



By a happy mixture of vowels and consonants, and 

 by a combination of the latter favourable for the 

 pronunciation, the language has also much euphony, 

 though many call it rough on account of the r (read 

 rth) ; but the sound of entire words, not that of the 

 single letters which compose them, determines the 

 roughness or smoothness of their pronunciation; 

 besides, every language, on account of the difference 

 of the feelings which it has to convey, some gentle, 

 others harsh and violent, ought to be able to form 

 some harsh sounds. The terminations of the various 

 declensions and conjugations are mostly vowels, or 

 the smoother consonants. In general, the Bohemian 

 has a natural melody, like that of the Greek ; for the 

 tongue stops longer on a syllable containing a long 

 vowel, &, e, j, v, y, than on one containing a short 

 vowel. In the Bohemian alphabet of forty-two letters 

 (a number in which it is surpassed only by the Indian, 

 the most copious of known alphabets, and the Rus- 

 sian, which comes next to it), there are to be found 

 all the sounds of the other languages. The English 

 sound of ts the Bohemian expresses with c, the Eng- 

 lish y with g, the sh with as or s, the Italian ce or ci 

 with c, the French ge and gi with the z, the Italian u 

 with the y, the gn with the n, the English w with the 

 ?, particularly at the end of words. Hence his 

 alphabet enables him to write all languages so as to 

 give their correct pronunciation, and to pronounce 

 them easily and well, so as to be considered by 

 Frenchmen, Germans, and Italians as their country- 

 man. He never confounds smooth and rough letters ; 

 his singing is easy and graceful, and the Bohemian 

 opera pleases, like the Italian, as it suppresses no 

 syllables, but gives a full sound to each word. It is 

 very seldom that combinations of difficult consonants 

 are to be found in the Sclavonic idioms, and these 

 may be softened by the freedom of construction which 

 the language allows. The euphony of the language 

 is also the reason why the Bohemian takes a rank in 

 music inferior only to that of the Italian. Through- 

 out Europe, Bohemian musicians are to be found : the 

 distinguished musicians of Austria are mostly from 

 Bohemia. Taste and feeling for music almost always 

 keep pace with the melody of the language of a 

 nation. 



Bohemian Literature has five periods. The first 

 extends from the mythological times to 1409. It is 

 certain, that, among the Sclavonian tribes, the Czech! 

 were the first who cultivated and fixed their language. 

 (See Sdavomuus and Sclavonic Language.) It affords 



' no written documents of remote antiquity, unless we 

 believe the Runic characters to have been in use 

 before the introduction of Christianity. We know, 

 however, that the language of that period was similar 

 to the present, from the names of the penis, dukes, 

 rivers, cities, mountains which have lit en preserved, 

 such as Perun, Prcemysl, Boriwo-, Wltawa, Jiila, 

 Praha, Tetin, Krkonose. The Sclavonian apostle 

 Method, and the philosopher Constantine, called 

 Cyril, made the Sclavonians in Moravia acquainted 

 with Christianity. From thence it penetrated, under 

 duke Boriwog, to Bohemia, and thus the people of 

 this country received the Graeco-Sclavonic ritual in 

 the year 845. The same Constantine, invented for 

 the sounds of the Sclavonic language the Cyrillo- 

 Sclavonic alphabet Az, Buky, VViedi, Glagol, Dobro, 

 &c., borrowed mostly from the Greek. In later 

 times, the Glagolitic alphabet, sprang up, of which, 

 however, less use was made. When the Latin 

 church supplanted the Greek in Moravia, Bohemia, 

 and Paniionia . the I -at in alphabet came also into use, 

 instead of the Cyrillic. In Bohemia, the Cyrillic 

 character was in use only with the monks of Sazawa, 

 who observed the Sclavonic ritual. King Wratislaus, 

 intending to introduce it again in other places, and 

 asking the permission of pope Gregory VII., received 

 a refusal. As the Latins endeavoured to annihilate 

 all the writings of the old ritual, and the Sclavonic 

 language was, in many cases, obliged to give way 

 to the Latin, Bohemian literature suffered from po- 

 pery incalculable injury : hence we possess, from the. 

 earlier centuries, but a few insignificant remains in 

 the characters above mentioned. In the 10th cen- 

 tury, the Bohemians had a school at Kudet, in which 

 they learned Latin. Their most ancient relic is the 

 hymn (Hospodine Pomiluyny) of bishop Adalbert 

 (Wegtech), a native Bohemian, which is sung to the 

 present day, even by the Russians and Poles. Some 

 think it of still greater antiquity. From the llth 

 century, we have no complete works ; but, in Latin 

 documents, Sclavonic names are frequently found. 

 The 12th and 13th centuries were more fertile. 

 When king Wratislaus issued the summons for the 

 renowned expedition to Milan, all Prague resounded 

 with the songs of the valiant young knights ; but 

 none of them has been preserved. Zawis Z. Rozm- 

 berka wrote, in 1290, several good poems. The Bo- 

 hemians possess the remains ot a collection of lyrico- 

 epic national songs, without rhyme, which seem to 

 liave been of great merit ; but only two sheets of 

 parchment, in duodecimo, and two small stripes, hav 

 been preserved. Mr Hanka, keeper of the Bohe- 

 mian national museum, discovered these valuable re- 

 mains in a room in the church at Koniginhof, in a 

 pile of neglected papers. The manuscript appears to 

 have been written in the years 1290 and 1310 : some of 

 the poems may be still older : the more is the loss of 

 the greater part of them to be regretted. This whole 

 collection consisted of three books, as may be con- 

 cluded from the inscription of the remaining chapters 

 of the third book, which are inscribed 26th, 27th, 

 28th. Fourteen poems are preserved, which consti- 

 tute those three chapters. (See Rukopi's Kralod- 

 worsky wydany odJVac, Hanky, 1819:) We cannot 

 determine the subject of the first song, Boleslaw, by 

 the part which has come down to us; the second 

 poem. IVihori Dub, calls upon duke Udalrich to drive 

 the Poles from Prague (1003); the third, Benes, 

 celebrates the repulse of the Saxons who advanced 

 from Gorlitz ; the fourth relates Jaroslaw Stern berg's 

 victory over the Tartars, near Olmutz, in 1241 ; and 

 so on. Goethe found these national songs worthy of 

 particular attention. A Bohemian psalter, and a 

 legend, in rhyme, on the twelve apostles (the latter 

 oidy a fragment of seventy verses, at Vienna), hare 







