patriot editor of the National News (Národni Noviny) became the leader of the new spirit in Bohemia and set high the standard of literary virility, courage and worth. Mawkish sentimentality in patriotism or letters was so bitterly scored by the forceful statesman-editor that the very causticity of his arraignment fairly seared the edges of maudlin pseudo-patriotism and insured the growth of healthy tissue in place of the old and useless.
Since that time the cuticle of Bohemian literature has many times needed the beneficial cauterizing of a fearless Havliček. Yet, on the whole, it has had an unusually wholesome and virile development so that few nations indeed can boast of so many productions of relatively high merit as are shown by the literary annals of Bohemia in the latter half of the nineteenth century and in the first decade of the present century.
Each field of literary endeavor has been tilled and well tilled by these awakened dreamers of the Slavic race who have been cradled in the heart of Europe since the fifth century.
František Palacky whose monumental history of Bohemia has been ranked by W. S. Monroe in “Bohemian Language and Literature” as on a par with the works of Freeman in England and Motley in America; Jan Kollar, seer of the Slavonian, poet of “The Daughter of Sláva” and projector of Panslavism; Pavel Šafařik, student of antiquities, working also for Slavonic brotherhood; Hanka, Čelakovsky, Erben, folklorists and earlier poets; Bozena Némcova, Caroline Světla, Alois Jirasek, Julius Zeyer, Karel Rais in the field of fiction; Vítězslav Hálek, Svatopluk Čech, Julius Zeyer, Joseph V. Sládek, Jaroslav Vrchlicky[1], Joseph S. Machar, Fr. X . Svoboda among the poets who have earned and won renown in later times; Joseph K. Tyl, Václav Klicpera, Emanuel Bozděch, František A. Šubert, Joseph Štolba and Jaroslav Kvapil among the dramatic writers—all these are names of men and women who have produced lasting and valuable literature.
When a man has been occupied in one or more divisions of literary endeavor it is always a little difficult to properly classify him. So, in the case of Jaroslav Kvapil who has been an indefatigable literary worker, who has produced several volumes of lyric poetry, a number of dramatic works and also several librettos and translations, it appears a dubitable question to some whether- ↑ Vrchlicky ranks also among Dramatists. Readers of Poet Lore will recall the translations given of “At the Chasm,” and “The Witness,” and the account of his work by Charles Recht.
