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.