Bohemia,
the first regular printing establishment at Prague is not older than
A.D. 1487. Several Bohemian books, however, were printed before this
time by travelling workmen. In regard to the first work printed in the
Bohemian language historians are not entirely agreed. According to
Jungmann,[26] a letter from Huss to Jakaubek, of 1459. was the first
specimen of Bohemian printing; the above-mentioned chronicle of Troy
of 1468 the second; and the New Testament of 1475 the third. According
to Dobrovsky, the New Testament of 1475 is the earliest printed work
in Bohemian. From that year to 1488, only seven Bohemian works appear
to have been issued from the press; among which was a Psalter and
another New Testament. In 1488, after the foundation of a regular
printing office, the whole Bohemian Bible was printed for the first
time; in the same year the History of Troy again, and the Roman
chronicle; and in the following year the first Bohemian almanac, and
the Bible of Kuttenberg. The subsequent editions belong, as to time,
to the following period; but are given in the note below.[27]

THIRD PERIOD.

_Golden age of the Bohemian Literature. From the diffusion of
printing, about A.D._ 1500, _to the battle at the White Mountain,
A.D._ 1620.

It is chiefly for the sake of clearness and convenience, that writers
on the literary history of Bohemia separate this period from the
former; in its character and its genius it was entirely the same. What
the Bohemians had _acquired_ in the one, they _possessed_ in the
other; what they had only aimed at in the former, they reached in the
latter; what had been the property of a few, was now augmented by an
abundant harvest in their diligent hands, and enriched a multitude.
But the objects, the stamp, the character, of both centuries were
essentially the same. Literary cultivation, which during the sixteenth
century was every where else monopolized by the clergy and a few
distinguished individuals, was now in Bohemia the common property of
the people; who for the most part embraced the evangelical doctrines
in their manifold, though but little differing shades. But although
religion was to them the object of chief interest, it was yet far from
occupying their minds exclusively. And this is the point, in which the
history of the Bohemian Reformation materially differs from that of
some other countries. Luther's elevated mind did not indeed give room
to narrow prejudices against those