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