wrote a
chronicle extending from 1419 to 1443, in barbarous Latin, to which he
added some notes in Bohemian. Several other chronicles, the authors of
which are not known, serve as continuations of those of the preceding
century, which were devoted to the affairs of their own country. The
above-mentioned Zidck, on the other hand, undertook to write a
universal history, after the division of time then customary, into six
ages. This book forms the third part of his great work, "Instructions
on Government," to which we have above alluded. In this work the
author seizes every opportunity to lecture the king, to give him
advice, and to rebuke him. According to Dobrovsky, his boldness not
unfrequently degenerates into coarseness and insolence. It is an
amusing reproach, which among others he brings against the king, that
he had net one camel, whilst Job had six thousand. The same individual
wrote also a large work in Latin, a kind of Cyclopaedia, the manuscript
of which is in the library of the university of Cracow.

We finish the history of this period with a short account of the state
of medicine and natural sciences in Bohemia. It is true, that the
greater part of the learned men who wrote on these subjects, preferred
the use of the Latin language. But many of them were in the habit of
making at least Bohemian extracts or abridgments of their most popular
works, or sometimes had the whole of them translated by their pupils.
Among the medical writers of this time, Christian Prachatitzky a
clergyman, John Czerny and Claudian Bohemian brethren, Albik, and
Gallus, must be mentioned; the two latter wrote only in Latin.

This section of the Bohemian literature is particularly rich in
herbals. Several works of instruction in botany were also written. A
manuscript of 1447, "On the inoculation of Trees," may be mentioned
here, although belonging rather to the department of agriculture.

The Bohemian language, although improving and evidently rising in
esteem with every lustrum of the fifteenth century, had however not
yet supplanted the Latin. Many of the most eminent among the learned
of this period preferred still to write in Latin: as Hieronymus
Balbus, Bohuslav, Hassenstein of Lobkowic, Shlechta, Olomucius, and a
number of others; who all contributed nevertheless to elevate the
glory of the Bohemian name, and could not but exert a powerful
influence on the nation.

In respect to the date of the introduction of printing into