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INTRODUCTION

Bohemian exiles, though they had been well treated by the Poles, sympathised largely with the Swedes, whose Protestantism was somewhat similar to their own. Komensky, far too great an enthusiast to be a cautious man, shared this feeling, and gave utterance to it in his "Panegyricus Carolo Gustavo magno Suecorum regi." The Swedes were at first victorious, overran a large part of Poland, and captured the town of Lissa. In 1656, however, the Poles recaptured the town and completely destroyed it, partly, as Komensky's enemies alleged, because of his panegyric on the King of Sweden. Komensky's library and MSS. were for a second time destroyed. He, now already sixty-five years old, found himself again a homeless wanderer. After staying some time at Stettin, Hamburg, and other places, he at last found a refuge at Amsterdam. Lawrence de Geer, the son of his old patron, Louis de Geer, invited him to reside there. It was there that Komensky spent the last years of his troubled life. His chiliastic views, and his firm belief in so-called "prophets," involved him in much theological controversy, carried on with the discourtesy, and indeed brutality, customary among the theologians of his time. Many false or exaggerated accusations against Komensky, gathered from the controversial writings of his opponents, were afterwards repeated by Bayle in his "Dictionnaire Historique et Critique," and Komensky was long principally judged according to Bayle's one-sided account. The greater interest now shown in Komensky's educational work, and, on the other