Page:Lectures on The Historians of Bohemia by Count Lutzow (1905).djvu/64

 pheming and ordering his skin to be used as a drum. It is difficult to read anything more repulsive than this account of the death of a man who, though not untouched by the cruelty of his time, was according to his own lights a fervent Christian and a true Bohemian patriot.

The two last historians of this period whom I shall mention are Bishop Dubravius of Olmütz, and Bartoš, surnamed ‘the writer.’ Dubravius has left us a Latin history of Bohemia from the earliest period to the accession of Ferdinand I in 1526. The book has little historical value; of the Hussite wars Dubravius writes as a strong and not very scrupulous partisan of Rome.

More interesting is the book of Bartoš, or Bartholomew, surnamed ‘the writer.’ The book of Bartoš, who was a town official at Prague, is written in Bohemian, and is entitled Chronicle of the Seditions and Tumults at Prague. It deals with a period of only fifteen years, and treats of the troubles—caused by two rival demagogues, Hlavsa and Pašek—that broke out at Prague during the reign of the weak King Louis. The portraits of the two rival demagogues are very striking, but I have not time to quote them here. Those interested in the matter will find a translation of this part of Bartoš’s book in my History of Bohemian Literature. Interesting also are Bartoš’s account of the election of Ferdinand I in 1526, and of the introduction of Lutheranism into Bohemia, which for a time diminished the usual antipathy between Bohemians and Germans.

The Chronicle of Bartoš carries the history of Bohemia on to the year 1526. That year is a great