any thing which strikes the American and English traveller
in that beautiful region more, than the general prevalence of a gift
so seldom met with in their own countries.

Bohemia, until the sixth century was inhabited by a Celtic race, the
Boii. After them the country was called _Boiohemnum,_ i.e., home of
the Boii; in German still Boeheim.[1] The Boii were driven to the
south-west by the Markomanns; the Markomanns were conquered by the
Lombards. After the downfall of the great kingdom of Thuringia in the
middle of the sixth century, Slavic nations pushed forward into
Germany, and the _Czekhes_ settled in Bohemia, where an almost
deserted country offered them little or no resistance. The Czekhes, a
Slavic race, came from Belo-Chrobatia, as the region north of the
Carpathian range was then called.[2] Their name has been usually
explained from that of their chief, Czekh; but Dobrovsky more
satisfactorily derives it from _czeti, czjti_, to begin, to be the
first; according to him Czekhes signifies much the same as
Front-SIavi.[3] The person of Czekh has rather a mythological than an
historical foundation. The whole history of that period, indeed, is
so intimately interwoven with poetical legends and mythological
traditions, that it seems impossible at the present time to
distinguish real facts from poetical ornaments. The hero of the
ancient chronicles Samo, the just Krok, Libussa the wise and
beautiful, and the husband of her choice, the peasant Perzmislas, all
move in a circle of poetical fiction. There is, however, no doubt that
there is an historical foundation for all these persons; for tradition
only expands and embellishes; but rarely, if ever, invents.

What we have said in our introduction, in regard to the vestiges of an
early cultivation of the Slavic nations in general, must be applied to
the Czekhes particularly.[4] The courts of justice in which the just
Krok and his daughter presided, and which the chronicles describe to
us, present indeed a wonderful mixture of the sacred forms of a well
organized society, and of that patriarchal relation, which induced the
dissenting parties to yield with childlike submission to the arbitrary
decisions of the prince's wisdom. According to the chronicle, so early
as A.D. 722, Libussa kept a _pisak_ or clerk, literally, _a, writer;_
and her prophecies were written down in Slavic characters. The same
princess is said to have founded Prague. A considerable number of
Bohemia