"Thou art perfect then," says Antigonus to a Mariner in the Winter's Tale:
Thou art perfect then, our ship hath touch'd upon
The deserts of Bohemia?
Antigonus lands, charged to abandon a little girl, to whom he addresses these words:
Blossom, speed thee well!
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . The storm begins
. . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . Thou art like to have
A lullaby too rough[604].
Does not Shakespeare seem to have told in advance the story of the Princesse Louise, that young "blossom," that new Perdita transported to the deserts of Bohemia?
Prague, 28 and 29 May 1833.
Confusion, blood, catastrophes compose the history of Bohemia; her dukes and kings, in the midst of civil wars and foreign wars, fight with their subjects or come to logger-heads with the Dukes and Kings of Silesia, Saxony, Poland, Moravia, Hungary, Austria and Bavaria.
During the reign of Wenceslaus VI.[605], who spitted his cook for roasting a hare badly, arose John Huss, who, having studied at Oxford, brought back the doctrine of Wyclif[606]. The Protestants, who were looking for ancestors everywhere without being able to find any, report that, from the top of his funeral pile, John sang and prophesied the coming of Luther:
"The world filled with acidity," says Bossuet, "gave birth to Luther and Calvin, who canton Christendom."