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