Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/35

carries on the narrative up to 1346, and ends with the election of Charles as King of the Romans. The fact that these two parts differ in many ways has led some to conjecture that the first part only is the work of Charles, and that some other writer—the name of Beneš of Weitmil has been suggested—had continued the narrative. The best and most recent Bohemian authorities oppose this view. The earlier part of Charleses book is obviously founded on a diary, and it is possible that when writing the latter part Charles may have sought the advice of some of the chroniclers, whom his passionate interest in history had induced him to invite to his court. Yet the whole book is substantially the prince’s own work, and it is hardly necessary to mention that from Julius Caesar downward many autobiographers have written in the third person. Towards the end of his book Charles mentions that he had intended to continue his memoirs for thus the book is perhaps most fitly described to a further period. The pressure of work when Charles became King of the Romans, then German Emperor, and after his father’s death King of Bohemia, no doubt prevented him from carrying out this plan. Charles dedicated his book to his sons, who were to succeed him ‘on the twofold thrones,’ as he himself words it. I will quote a few lines from the introduction. Addressing his successors, Charles writes: ‘When after me you will reign adorned with the diadem of kings, remember that I also reigned before you, and that I was then reduced to dust and the mire of worms. Thus will you also flit like a shadow and fall as the vanishing flowers of the field. What value has nobility and abundance of possessions, unless you have also a pure conscience with the true faith and

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