Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/122

 ideal only. He believed that Christians can come near to it, nay, even attain it.’

Of Professor Goll’s other works, I should mention his recent book, Čechy a Prusy ve středověku (Bohemia and Prussia in the Middle Ages). Of this book, which is a model of Bohemian prose, Dr. Flajšhans writes in his History of Bohemian Literature: ‘We read it as if it were a romance, and yet we know that it is scientifically as correct as an astronomic table.’

A very distinguished Bohemian historian of the present day is Dr. Rezek, born in 1853. He has carefully studied the years immediately before and after the election of Ferdinand of Habsburg to the Bohemian throne in 1526. Palacký’s monumental work ends with that year, and Dr. Rezek here writes as a continuator of his book. Dr. Rezek was for some time a member of the Austrian cabinet, but he resigned when the political situation rendered the presence of a Bohemian patriot in the Austrian cabinet impossible. Dr. Rezek intends to devote himself again to historical work, as he has indeed himself told me. A continuous work on the history of Bohemia from 1526 to 1620 is indeed much to be desired, and no one would be more qualified to undertake this task than a learned, conscientious, and talented historian such as is Dr. Rezek.

Limiting myself strictly to writers of history, I cannot here refer to those who have written on the history of Bohemian literature. Prominent among these is Dr. Flajšhans, whose history of the literature of his country is very valuable. Dr. Flajšhans’s studies on Hus entitle him to be considered a historian also. The work, entitled Master John Hus, which he has recently