CHAPTER XV.
The Kolowratstrasse—Picolomini's Palace—The Museum—Geological Affluence—Early Czechish Bibles—Rare Old Manuscripts—Letters of Huss and Ziska—Tabor Hill—Portraits—Hussite Weapons—Antiques—Doubtful Hussites in the Market-place—The Glückliche Entbindung—A Te Deum—Two Evening Visits—Bohemian Hospitality—The Gaslit Beer-house.
The Kolowratstrasse is one of the finest streets in Prague. It is broad, straight, and well paved; contains the best hotels, the most elegant coffee-houses, the handsomest shops, and a palace or two. It was always known as the Graben; for here once flowed the ditch separating the Alt and Neustadt, and Graben it still remains, the folkname prevailing over that of the Imperial minister after whom it was named some twenty years ago.
One of the palaces formerly belonged to Wallenstein's opponent, Count Octavio Picolomini; the other now contains the Bohemian Museum, which, an honour to the city, is a praiseworthy example of the intellectual movement among the natives. The Museum Company, formed in 1818, to collect works of art, natural productions of the country, curiosities, and antiquities, appointed a committee in 1830 to promote a scientific cultivation of the Czechish language and literature, and to create a section of archæology and natural history. Under the designation Matice ceská (Bohemian Mother), a fund was established and vigorously maintained, out of which the desired objects were accomplished; particularly as regards the literature. To call Palacky into activity—a historian of whom Bohemia is justly proud—was no trifling achievement. Up to 1847 the collections were kept in the Sternberg Palace at the Hradschin; but in that year they were removed to their present more convenient and accessible quarters.
Later in the day I went to the Museum: I wished to see with what sort of carnal weapons the Hussites had gained so many victories over their fellow-countrymen. First you enter the department of geology and mineralogy, the richest and most important of the whole collection. The specimens are well arranged, and among them you may see minerals and fossils which give a special interest to the geology of Bohemia.
Concerning these fossils, the late Dean of Westminster says, in his Bridgewater Treatise: "The finest example of vegetable remains I have ever witnessed, is that of the coal mines of Bohemia. The most elaborate imitations of living foliage upon the painted ceilings of Italian palaces bear no comparison with the beauteous profusion of extinct vegetable forms with which the galleries of these instructive coal-mines are overhung. The roof is covered as with a canopy of gorgeous tapestry, enriched with festoons of most graceful foliage, flung in wild, irregular profusion over every portion of its surface. The effect is heightened by the contrast of the coal-black colour of these vegetables with the light groundwork of the rock to which they are attached. The spectator feels himself transported, as if by enchantment, into the forests of another world; he beholds trees of forms and characters now unknown upon the surface of the earth, presented to his senses almost in the beauty and vigour of their primeval life; their scaly stems and bending branches, with their delicate apparatus of foliage, are all spread before him, little impaired by the lapse of countless ages, and bearing faithful records of extinct systems of vegetation, which began and terminated in times of which these relics are the infallible historians."
If you care but little for botany and zoology, with plants, fossils, and creatures from before the Flood, the attendant will lead you at once to the archæological department, and uncover the glass-cases containing rare old manuscripts. Among them are a poem of the ninth century about Libussa, a somewhat mythical Queen of Bohemia, from whom Palacky has cleared away the fable; the Niebelungenlied in Czechish; a Latin Lexicon with Bohemian gloss, date 1102; seven editions of the Bible in Czechish, all translated before Luther's, show how the Bohemians profited by the reading of Wycliffe's books which were sent to them from England; and a remarkable hymn-book, written at the cost of different guilds, each of whom ornamented their portion with exquisite paintings in miniature; specimens of the earliest representations of musical notes; and the first book printed in Bohemia, Historia Trojanska, 1468.
You will look with interest at the letters by Huss, and the challenge which he hung up on the gate of the University, declaring his religious opinions, and his readiness to maintain them by argument against all comers: Latin documents, in a stiff, formal hand. Equally stiff is a letter written by Ziska, dated from the Hussite camp at Tabor; but there is a world of suggestion in those hard characters. That rusty leaf sets your memory recalling the events of five hundred years ago: the journey of Huss to face the wicked Council, and martyrdom at Constance, under a safe-conduct granted by the Emperor Sigismund, requiring all men to let the valiant preacher go and come, and tarry freely and unharmed;—the furious outbreak of the Protestants at the accursed condemnation of their teacher to the flames;—their sanguinary battles, and fiery zeal, and avowed determination to root out their enemies, whereby for eighteen years the land was laid waste with fire and sword, and the name of Hussite became a very terror:—and their redoubtable leader, Ziska the one-eyed, standing out from among them in bold relief, a captain most resolute and skilful, the instrument of righteous vengeance upon the execrable Sigismund; who, though he lost that single flashing eye of his, yet never lost a battle, nor the confidence of his followers. We see him amidst his rough and ready fighting men in the camp, on the heights to which, in the pride of their hearts, they gave a name from Scripture; and where they quenched their thirst in the water of Jordan, exulting,
"What hill is like to Tabor hill in beauty and in fame?"
From the letter you turn to look at a portrait of the warrior. It is a miserable painting, very much in the signboard style, yet you can mark the breadth of shoulder beneath the gleaming corslet, the oval face, aquiline nose, large bright eye, and lofty forehead, shaded by thick, black, curling hair, and picture to yourself a proper hero. There is another and a better portrait in the Strahow monastery, and by noting the best points of each you will improve your idea, though perhaps not to full satisfaction. The attendant, moreover, will call your attention to a portrait of Huss, whose features express but little of the intellectual qualities and the steadfastness by which he was characterized.