The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 56, June, 1862. Various

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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 56, June, 1862 - Various

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thee was crushed our might;

      What in thee lies covered o'er

      Ages cannot back restore."

      If there had been a Bohemian people, preserving a real vital tendency, the Battle of the White Mountain would have re

1

Newspapers proper appeared as early as 1615 in Germany. But these rhymed gazettes were very numerous. They were more or less bulky pamphlets, with pithy sarcastic programmes for titles, and sometimes a wood or copper cut prefixed. A few of them were of Catholic origin, and one, entitled Post-Bole, (The Express,) is quite as good as anything issued by the opposite party.

2

Some cultivated Bohemians who can recall the glories of Ziska and his chiefs, and who comprehend the value of the tendency which they strove to represent, think that there would have grown a Bohemian people, a great centre of Protestant and Slavonic influence, if it had not been for the Battle of Weissenberg in 1620, when the Catholic Imperialists defeated their King Frederic. A verse of a popular song, The Patriot's Lament, runs thus, in Wratislaw's translation:—

"Cursed mountain, mountain white!Upon thee was crushed our might;What in thee lies covered o'erAges cannot back restore."

If there had been a Bohemian people, preserving a real vital tendency, the Battle of the White Mountain would have resulted differently, even had it been a defeat.

Other patriots, cultivated enough to be Panslavists, indulge a more cheerful vein. They see a good time coming, and raise the cry of Hej Slované!

"Hey, Slavonians! our Slavonic language still is living,Long as our true loyal heart is for our nation striving;Lives, lives the Slavonic spirit, and 't will live forever:Hell and thunder! vain against us all your rage shall shiver."

This is nothing but a frontier feeling. The true Slavonic centre is at St. Petersburg; thence will roll a people and a language over all kindred ground.

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