r long before
he adopted the opinions of the Taborites. He was called Ziska, or the
one-eyed, because in his great battle with the Teutonic knights in
1410, a wound deprived him partially of sight, and he became, during
the religious contests that followed the martyrdom of Huss, totally
blind. Yet blind as he was, and led out to war, like King John at the
battle of Cressy, between two horsemen, he continued not only to fight,
but to arrange plans of campaign, and to direct the movements of armies
with equal judgment and effect; and he died as he had lived, in
unmitigated hostility towards the pope, the Emperor Sigismond, and all
their adherents. The degree of reverence in which his memory continues
to be held, testifies to the sort of influence which he must have
excited while living. There is no end to the tales which the Bohemians
love to tell of his bodily strength and prowess. His favourite
weapon--a sort of club, or spiked mace,--is shown with extreme pride;
and the tree under which he is said to have slept on the night previous
to his battle with the emperor, continues, to this hour, to command
that species of reverence which borders at least upon superstition. In
a word, Ziska appears greatly to have resembled, in more than one
particular, that Balfour of Burley whom Sir Walter Scott has described,
and his fame is still cherished as a national possession, probably
because the principles for which he contended have not, like those of
which Balfour was the champion, obtained even a modified toleration.

What the arms neither of Ziska nor of Procopius could win, the
moderation and talent of John of Rokysan succeeded in procuring. After
a long and fierce war, during which excessive barbarities were
practised on both sides, the Council of Basle met in 1433. John of
Rokysan, one of the most popular among the Hussite divines, attended
there to plead the cause of his party, and for a space of nearly two
months, the four points of which I have spoken as claimed by the
Calixtines, were debated. But for the present, no results ensued. The
papists would yield nothing, and John and his brother delegates
returned home. But the popish party, taught wisdom by experience,
abstained from a renewed appeal to the sword till they had thrown the
apple of discord among their adversaries, and weakened by dividing
them. In this, however, they succeeded only in part; so that
ultimately, that is, in 1436, the use of the cup was conceded; a