gators of these cruel acts, when they kindled the faggots by
which these two martyrs died, did not anticipate that the fire they
had lighted would spread over a whole country, and carry horror and
devastation through the half of Germany. The war by which the
disciples of Huss avenged him, was one of the most bloody and
destructive known in history. The news of his death, when it reached
Bohemia, touched the heart of every individual like an electric spark.
But this is not our province. Keeping only our own object, the fate of
the language and literature in view, we must refer the reader to the
historical accounts of this distressing period, and limit ourselves to
the mention of those events only, which had an immediate influence on
these two topics.

Under the guidance of Nicholas of Hussineccz, the friend and patron of
Huss, in whom even his enemies acknowledged more a defender of the
Reformers, than a persecutor of the Catholics; of Zhizhka of Trocznow,
a Bohemian knight of great valour, but disgraced by cruelty; and,
after the death of these two, under Procopius, formerly a clergyman;
the Hussites carried their victorious arms throughout all Bohemia,
into Silesia, Franconia, Austria, and Saxony; and made these unhappy
countries the theatre of the most cruel devastations. If, divided into
several parties, as they were, they were thus powerful, they would
have been twice as strong, had they been united in the true spirit of
Huss. But even as early as A.D. 1421 dissensions arose among them; and
they finally split into several sects and parties, who mutually hated
each other even more than they did the Romanists. Among these the
Calixtins or Utraquists, whose principal object was to obtain the
sacrament in both forms; and the Taborites, who insisted on a complete
reform of the church; were the two principal. The Calixtins
comprehended the more moderate of the nobility and the wealthy
citizens of Prague; between them and the Romanists a compact was
concluded at Basle, in A.D. 1434, by which a conditional religious
liberty was granted to them, and they acknowledged the emperor
Sigismund as their sovereign; the weak king Wenceslaus having died in
1419. The Taborites were unable to resist any longer the united power
of both parties. They partly dispersed; the rest united in the year
1457, in separate communities, and called themselves United Brethren.
Under the severest trials of oppression and persecution, the number of
th