Page:The Queens Court Manuscript with Other Ancient Bohemian Poems, 1852, Cambridge edition.djvu/17

Rh accident to discover the very best thing that has escaped the ravages of time, not merely in the old Bohemian literature, but in that of all the Slavonic races, the Queen’s Court Manuscript, of the discovery of which I shall now proceed to give an account.

After publishing the first volume of the above-mentioned collection of ancient poems, P. Hanka made an excursion in September, 1817, to Králové dvur or (Königinhof (Queen’s Court) in the circle of Königgratz to visit a former friend, P. Skleniczka, and was introduced by him to the then Capellan of the place, P. Pancratius Borcz. At table, on the 16th of September, conversation turned upon the destruction of the town in the Hussite wars, and particularly upon the great conflagration in 1450, and P. Borcz remarked that in a chamber in the town church under a mass of papers and useless furniture, there were to be found some old weapons, particularly arrows, from the Hussite times. This caused a search, and among other manuscripts of less value in the Latin language was discovered the above-named manuscript, unfortunately only a fragment of the entire manuscript, which upon closer examination appeared to be written in the Bohemian language, to be of a poëtical nature and of the highest value. Such chambers placed in the lower