Page:The letters of John Hus.djvu/234

 of cession,’ and naming proctors who should carry out his resignation. John of course refused (Hardt, iv. 523, Finke, op. cit. 167). John of Chlum’s optimism shows how little he and the other Bohemians understood the working of the Inquisition. For the time being, however, further proceedings were postponed.

Dearest friend, you ought to know that your case and the cause of truth never moved on so brightly as at present, although some other foreign and irrelevant matters have cropped up, so that your case is delayed for the moment.

All your friends, especially Christian, are paying court to the good widow, who is a second widow of Sarepta!

That tattered three-cornered bit of paper has come to hand and has been duly read. Its arrival without the least delay could not have been so quickly anticipated.

Our doctor of Biberach only asks for a reasonable excuse for writing; from which you can guess his incurable itch for scribbling! I beg you to send some comforting words to your good-hearted friends.

In the following letter we are introduced to the ‘consolatory rhymes,’ which Hus wrote in prison, as Mladenowic puts it, ‘to pass the time and console himself.’ Their value as hexameters may be judged from the third line,

The complaint of ‘negligence in writing,’ would point to a date