*HANKA, WACLAW or WENCESLAUS, a Bohemian poet and antiquary, whose name is inseparably connected with some of the finest monuments of Bohemian literature, was born at the village of Horenewea on the 10th of Juue 1791. Up to the age of sixteen the only education he received was that which he obtained at the pariah school in winter, and his chief occupation in summer was tending his father's sheep. From some Polish and Servian soldiers who were quartered on his father's farm he _learned their respective languages, which are closely akin to the Bohemian, his native tongue, to which he early manifested a strong attachment. With the German he was at that time so unacquainted that, when sent to the grammar-school of Koniggratz, the teachers allowed him by special favour to draw up his exercises in Bohemian, though German was the ordinary language of the schooL The object of his parents in sending him to study was to protect him from the military conscription, which in Bohemia did not extend to scholars; but it was soon discovered that learning was his proper vocation. He afterwards studied philosophy at l'rague, and while at the university there, proposed and established a society for the cultivation of the Bohemian language, which had unexpected success. At Vienna, where he studied law, he even set on foot a Bohemian periodicaL His zeal in the cause introduced him to the acquaintance of Dobrowsky [Donnowser], who had then been for thirty years the most active and distinguished cultivator of Bohemian literature, and who became Hanka's warm friend, instructor, and patron. On the foundation of the Bohemian Museum, at the former palace of Couut Sternberg, in the Hradschin of Prague, about 1817, Haulm was appointed its librarian, apparently at Dobrowsky's recom mendation. Nearly at the same time probably took place his earliest appearance as a poet, in a first volume of verses under the title of ' liankowy Pjene,' to which a second has never been added, though a second edition of the first was published iu 1819. In 1817 he coin ineneed the issue of the ‘Starebyla Skied:side,' a collection of early Bohemian literature, especially poetry, chiefly derived from unpublished manuscripts. The series extended altogether to eight small volumes, and was not completed till 1824. The contents, which comprise among other things a narrative poem on the subject of King Arthur, are of little interest except to the Bohemian antiquary ; but in the course of collecting the materials for this work a manuscript of a moat remarkable character canoe to light In a very singular manner. Ou the 16th of September 1817 Hanka went to the church-tower at the little town of Kratodver, or Konlginhof, to see a bundle of arrows which he was told had lain in the under-vault of the tower from the time of Ziska, the Hussite chieftain of the 15th century, who had plundered the town. While walking about the vault ha informs us that his foot struck against something, which on taking up ha found to be a bundle of parchment documents, and which a further examination showed to consist of a number of poems in the Bohemian language. 1u a few days he sent to the authorities of the town a transcript of some of the poems; they in recompense presented him with the original menu script, which he in turn presented to the Bohemian Museum, where it now forms one of the principal treasures of which he is the guardian. Snch is the history of the discovery of the manuscript of Kralodvor, or of 'the Queen's Court,' as it has sometimes been called in English. There has been much controversy as to the date of the composition of the poems, some of the Bohemian antiquaries being disposed to assign them to the old heathen times to which their subjects refer, while others contend that they were composed as recently as the year 1310. At one time it was suspected by many that the date of their compo sition was the 19th century, and that the author and discoverer were one. Whatever may be the date, or whoever may be the author, there
can be no doubt that they form the most original and interesting volume that Bohemian literature has to show. Of the poems which the manuscript contains, several are of a narrative and some of a lyric character, the former relating to passages in the ancient history of Bohemia. One, which is particularly spirited, contains the description of a tournament connected with a love-tale ; another relates the Tartar invasion of Europe under the command of Kubla Khan. In the poem or ballad on this invasion, a distinguished part is assigned to an English knight who fought on the Bohemian aide, and who is described by the-name of Veston—a sufficiently near approach to Weston. We are not aware if it has been observed by the Bohemian critics that it is a remarkable coincidence that the English name thus mentioned should be the very same with which a connection was established between England and Bohemia three hundred years later. Elizabeth Weston, an English lady, who married a gentleman of the emperor's court, lived in Bohemia, and wrote a volume of Latin poetry, which was published in the early years of the 17th century. The poems of the manuscript of Kralodvor, which were first pub lished in 1819 with a German translation by Swoboda, had, at the outset, a brilliant success, which, after a temporary eclipse, they now again enjoy. The fourth edition, which was published in 1843, con tains translations from it into seven different lauguagee, including English, into which some of the ballads were rendered by Dr. (now Sir John) Bowring. A translation of the whole volume under the title of The Manuscript of the Queen's Court,' and under the assumption that their authenticity was unquestionable, was published at Cambridge in 1852 from tho pen of Mr. 1Vratielaw. Dubrowsky, in his history of early Bohemian literature, spoke of them, at the time of their first issue, as models of purity of language, and elegance of style. A storm however was soon to burst on the head of their discoverer. In 1818 the officers of the Bohemian Museum received an anonymous letter containing the manuscript of another old poem, The Judgment of Libuasa,' which the writer of the letter declared he had purloined from his master to save it from destruction. Dobrowaky at once pronounced the document not genuine, and after wards characterised it as " the obvious imposture of a scoundrel who wished to play his tricks on his erednloua countrymen." While he spoke thus in public, he did not hesitate in private to give it as his opinion that it was a forgery by Hanka. His judgment had such an effect, that for some time the poems were regarded by the literary circles of Bohemia in the same light as the poems of Rowley among ourselves. In 1828, a new discovery by Hanka of a manuscript of a translation of 'St. John's Gospel,' which Dobrowaky pronounced to be genuine, and which, nevertheless, contained peculiarities of language that had induced him to distrust the 'Libussa,' brought the tide to turn. Dobrowsky died in doubt in 1829. A minute investigation of the subject, made public in 1840 by Safarik and Palachy, two Bohemian historians and antiquaries of the highest reputation, led them to the belief that the Libusea; and, of course, the rest, were genuine. Hanka now enjoys the reputation of having dis covered in the Gospel manuscript, which is supposed to be earlier than the 10th century, the oldest specimen of the Bohemian language in existence, and in the Kralodvor manuscript relics of an early Bohemian literature which no one before him suspected to exist, and which is as superior to what followed, as the poems of Onkel to the ordinary run of Gaelic poetry.