Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/118

 court of Turin, which would thus have anticipated by two centuries the policy of Cavour— these and many other facts were by Gindely dug out of the archives where they had been so long concealed. Gindely’s masterpiece would no doubt have been his history of the Thirty Years’ War, had he lived to complete the work.

Professor Tieftrunk (born 1829, and who died in 1897) left a considerable number of writings. His only considerable historical work is his Odpor Stavů Českých proti Fernandovi, that is to say, The Opposition of the Bohemian Estate to Ferdinand I. The book is founded on the contemporary account of Sixt of Ottersdorf, which I mentioned in my last lecture, and on research in archives. Tieftrunk also edited and published part of Skála ze Zhoře’s vast historical work.

Among living Bohemian historians, Professor Wenceslas Vladivoj Tomek undoubtedly holds the foremost place. Born in 1818, he has, during his long life, devoted himself entirely to the study of history. In his younger days he was an assistant of Palacký, who was one of the first to appreciate his talent. I will not attempt to enumerate the works of Tomek. His life of Žižka is, perhaps, one of the most interesting of his minor works; and he has also written several smaller books on the history of Bohemia and modern Austria.

His great work, however, is his History of the Town of Prague. Twelve volumes, which bring the history of the city down to the year 1608, have already appeared. Tomek always writes as a strong conservative—I had almost said an apologist of absolute rule. Yet in his account of Hus (who was so closely con-