Page:A history of Bohemian literature.pdf/380

Rh the mind of the young student. "From that moment," he afterwards wrote, "I became a true Bohemian, at least to my best knowledge and will." Jungmann's life was by no means eventful, and requires little notice. He, soon after finishing his studies, became professor at the gymnasium of Leitmeritz, from which he was afterwards transferred to Prague. Here he spent the greatest part of his life, and died in 1847, a year before revolutionary events obliged so many Bohemian patriots to emerge from their seclusion and become popular leaders.

I have already alluded to the great activity the Bohemian writers of this period displayed as editors of the works of their ancient literature, as well as translators from the works of more advanced foreign literatures. The two tasks were closely connected, as the writers could only render in Bohemian the classical works of other countries by availing themselves of the rich verbal treasury which is contained in the works of their own ancient authors. Jungmann himself at the beginning of his life became known as a translator, and, in contradiction with his later vocation, oftenest attempted translations of poetical works. It may interest English readers to know that many of Jungmann's translations are from the English. Of all his translations, that of Milton's Paradise Lost, written in five-footed trochees, obtained greatest celebrity. It is really a wonderful achievement, if we consider that it was written in 1811, when the Bohemian language was only just awakening from its winter-sleep of nearly two hundred years. Jungmann also translated Gray's Elegy in a Churchyard, Goethe's Herman und Dorothea, and poems by Schiller and Bürger. From the French Jungmann translated Chateaubriand's Atala. It is stated that Jungmann planned a great original poem