was forced to leave his country, and in foreign lands he wrote in the interest of and for the Bohemian people. In 1647 he came to London at the express wish of the Long Parliament. To his humanitarian work many English colleges owe their origin. And so high was this Czech humanist esteemed in England that on an old English engraving dated 1642 we find the following beautiful inscription:—
Loe, here an Exile, who to serue his God
Hath sharply tasted of proud Pashur's Rod,
Whose learning, Piety and true worth beeing knowne
To all the world, makes all the world his owne.
In other directions the literary decay seemed so complete that even eminent Bohemian scholars began to fear that the nation and its language would be extinguished.
A mighty impulse was necessary to awaken the people from their lethargy, and this came from two sources. First, from the west, as the result of the French Revolution, which aroused the self-consciousness of the nation; and secondly, from within, through the national reaction against the oppressive Germanising efforts of the Government. The leader of this new movement was an eminent student of Slavonic languages, Josef Dobrovsky (1753-1829), and next to him the historian, F. M. Pelcl (1734-1801).
The poetry of this time was the expression of the aims and aspirations of men who, with patriotic zeal and ardour, were striving to raise the standard of literary excellence to a level worthy of the Bohemian nation. Later, another
