independent of religious prejudices; continued to labour for the benefit of a beloved mother tongue.  The Jesuits Konstanz, Steyer, and Drachovsky, wrote grammatical works, and the two first attempted to translate the Bible anew.  Plachy, ob. 1650, Libertin, and Taborsky, were distinguished preachers; Peshina, ob. 1680, Hammerschmidt, ob. 1731, and Beckowsky, ob. 1725, wrote meritorious historical works; Rosa, ob. 1689, composed another grammar and a dictionary.  Others wrote in Latin; and among these must be named the Jesuit Balbin, ob. 1688, who prepared several historical and bibliographical works of importance, part of which, however, were not published until long after his death.[36]

We turn once more to the unfortunate emigrants, and in the midst of the distress, privations, and sacrifices, which were the natural accompaniments of their exiled condition, we rejoice to meet with a name, which owes its splendour not alone to the general poverty of the period; but which outshines even the most distinguished of the former age, and is indeed the only one in the literary history of Bohemia, which has acquired a European fame.  This is Comenius, the last bishop of the Bohemian Brethren.  Although he belongs partly to the former period, and, in respect to his style, decidedly to the golden age of the Bohemian. literature, the time of his principal activity falls within this melancholy interval.  A few words may be devoted to the life of this remarkable individual.  He was born A.D. 1592, in the village of Komna in Moravia.  His baptismal names were John Amos; his father had probably no family name, as was frequently the case at that time among the lower classes throughout all Europe.  According to the custom of the time, he was called Komnensky from his native place, the Latin form of which is Comnenius, or more commonly Comenius.  His parents, who belonged to the community of the Brethren, sent him to school at Herborn.  He distinguished himself so much as to be made rector at Prerow, when only twenty-two years old; and two years later was transferred to Fulnck.  In 1618 this latter city was plundered by the Spaniards, and Comenius lost all his books and other property.  When the great persecution of the Protestants broke out, he fled to Poland.  Here he found many of his countrymen, of the sect of the Brethren, whom the persecutions of the former century had already driven hither, and who had here gathered themselves into communities essentially of the same constitution; although in some measure they were amalgamated with the dissenters in Poland.  In 1632 they elected him their bishop.  In 1631 he published his Janua linguarum reserrata, a work which spread his fame over all the world, and which was translated into twelve European languages, and also into Persian, Arabic, and Mongolian.  His object in this work was to point out a new method of teaching languages, by which they were to be used as keys for acquiring other useful knowledge.  In 1641 he was invited