translated into Bohemian.[25] Thus they gathered materials for future historians, although in their own day the field of history was but poorly cultivated, or at least with no more than common ability; for, as to quantity, there is no want.  Procopius, following out the example of Dalimil, wrote a new rhymed chronicle; Bartosh of Drahenicz 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.