Page:Adventures of Baron Wenceslas Wratislaw of Mitrowitz (1862).djvu/41

 Mathias, rebelled against him in Hungary and Austria, compelled him to abdicate, and was crowned King of Bohemia, amidst universal joy, on May 23, 1611.

The thirty-six years of the reign of Rudolf are called the golden age of Bohemian literature, as the king was both a learned student, especially of chemistry and natural philosophy, himself, and encouraged learning in every branch. Tycho Brahe and Kepler were invited to his court, and the faculty of medicine at Prague boasted some of the most distinguished chemists and engineers of the age. A specimen of the prose writers of this date, literally, and I fear too literally, tranelated, is now offered to the English public, in hopes that it will draw attention not only to the past, but also to the important present and promising future of the Bohemians, especially of that remnant of the Hussites which is now rapidly increasing in both number and cultivation. But the most remarkable feature in Bohemia at that time was the excellence of the local schools, one of which existed, according to Pelzel, in every little market-town in both Bohemia and Moravia. In Prague there were sixteen such schools, while Kuttenberg and Jungbunzlau possessed two each. None of these possessed fewer than two teachers, and many had four, five, or even six. No one was allowed to become a schoolmaster till he had taken the B.A. degree in the Carolinum at Prague. Thus many citizens were to be found in the towns who were well acquainted with Virgil, Ovid, and Horace, and even with Homer and Anacreon, and who wrote Latin and Greek poetry themselves. If a professor was wanted in the University, he was sought amongst the best of the schoolmasters in the country.

With Mathias the literary and scientific glory of Bohemia declined. His great endeavour was to obtain men and money for his wars in Hungary, and he therefore allowed the Parlia-