no means opulent, subscribed a sufficient sum to enable him to proceed to Prague. His life here also was a wretched one. He was in constant financial distress. While occupied with learned works of the highest importance, he was obliged to gain his living by writing in popular journals, and he had at one time even to accept the humiliating and invidious office of a "censor." Writing on Slav subjects is not at the present day a very lucrative occupation. It was yet less so at the time of Šafařik, when interest in these matters was still more limited. Šafařik's health began to fail in consequence of constant anxiety, but he continued his studies on the history and language of his country and race undauntedly. A speaker at the meeting of Bohemian scholars that in 1895 celebrated the centenary of Šafařik's birth, rightly described him as a "martyr of science." While the Austrian Government continued to regard Šafařik's researches with indifference, the attention of the Prussian authorities was attracted to his profound knowledge of Slavic philology and archæology, sciences that were then in their infancy. Šafařik was offered a professorship both by the University of Breslau and that of Berlin, but the Austrian Government, not wishing that he should expatriate himself, now appointed him professor of Slavic philology at the University of Prague. He, however, gave up this appointment a year later, when he became librarian of that university. In 1848 Šafařik made a brief appearance in the political arena. He was a member of the Slav congress that met at Prague in that year, and a speech in favour of the solidarity of the Slav nations which he delivered there caused great sensation. The failure of the congress and the German reaction,[1] which lasted
- ↑ See my article on the "Bohemian Question," Nineteenth Century, December 1898.
