composition of which belongs evidently to the eighth or ninth century.
But the manuscript itself is not older than the end of the thirteenth
century, and cannot therefore be considered as a sure monument of the
language in an earlier age. All these national songs have an
historical foundation; they celebrate battles and victories; and their
evident tendency is to exalt the national feelings. They have not that
plastic and _objective_ character which makes Homer and the Servian
popular epics so remarkable; and from which it appears that the poet,
during the time of his inspiration, is rather _above_ his subject; but
like the Russian tale of Igor's Expedition, the epic beauties are
merged in the lyric effusions of the poet's own feelings, who thus
never attempts to conceal that his whole soul is engaged in his
subject.

The oldest monuments of the Christian age are the names of the days,
which are of pure Slavic origin. Of the Lord's Prayer in Bohemian, on
comparing the oldest copy he could find among the ancient manuscripts,
Dobrovsky presumes that the form must have been about the same in the
ninth or tenth century; although the manuscript itself is somewhat
later. A translation of the _Kyrie eleison_, ascribed to Adalbert
second bishop of Prague, dates from the same time. During the eleventh
and twelfth centuries many convents were founded and schools attached
to them; German artists and mechanics and even agriculturists settled
in Bohemia. The influence of German customs and habits showed itself
more and more, and the nobility began to use in preference the German
language. In the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
this influence increased considerably, and exhibited itself most
favourably in the lyric poetry of the time, an echo of the German
Minnesingers; many of the poets belonging like them to the highest
nobility. Of all the Slavic nations, the Bohemian is the only one in
which the flower of chivalry has ever unfolded itself; and the cause
of its development here is doubtless to be sought in their occidental
feudal system, and in their constant intercourse with the Germans. The
natural tendency of the Polish nobility to heroic deeds and chivalrous
adventures was counterbalanced, partly by the oriental character of
their relation to the peasantry, which impressed on them at least as
much of the character of the Asiatic satrap, as of the occidental
knight; and partly by the want of a free middle cl