Page:The Queens Court Manuscript with Other Ancient Bohemian Poems, 1852, Cambridge edition.djvu/21

Rh sufficient circle of readers in the Bohemian language? I now proceed to consider the external form and internal contents of the important manuscript itself, which has proved and is proving so valuable to the land that gave it birth.

The fragment that remains consists in the first place of two narrow strips, and secondly of twelve complete leaves of parchment. The two narrow strips, on which only single syllables and words are still to be read, are connected in contents and sense with the leaves immediately following. Two such strips were found in the place of feathers on arrows, and came with the arrows into the possession of the late Prince Rudolph Kinsky. The manuscript belongs in shape to the class which is usually, though improperly, called 12mo. or small 8vo. manuscripts. The hand writing is still in good preservation, though pale from lapse of time, and is unusually good and legible. The superscriptions of the chapters and some of the poems, as well as the initial letters of several larger paragraphs, are written with red ink, and the ornamented initial letters of the poems with blue and green, and the latter are also richly gilt. In the whole manuscript there is no division of verses to be seen, and even single words are not regularly divided, but all proceeds straight forwards in uninterrupted