Page:Bohemian poems, ancient and modern (Lyra czecho-slovanska).djvu/30

xxvi the mind of every nation is cast in a mould corresponding to its mother tongue. The defenders of the Bohemian language became more numerous and more earnest, the common people themselves began to waken up and take an interest in the inheritance of their forefathers, which the hand of power was endeavouring to wrest from their possession, and all this in spite of the influence of the aristocracy, in spite of the oppressive tyranny of fashion. And, gradually, members of the noblest families began to sympathize with the tillers of their ground, and to recognise their right, as men, to the education which alone could elevate or civilize them, an education conducted through the medium of their own Slavonic language; nay, some truehearted individuals applied themselves to the cultivation of the language, in which their own first words were lisped, nor have their productions been unworthy of their noble and disinterested enthusiasm.

It were uninteresting to the English reader to have a list of writers presented to him, with whose works and the effect of whose writings he is utterly unacquainted; I should expect him to exclaim with