Vrchlický was born in 1853. After completing his studies at Prague University, he obtained a tutorship in an Italian aristocratic family. His residence in Italy had considerable influence on his poetic production. Upon his return he was engaged in educational and secretarial work, until in the year 1893 he was appointed professor of modern literature at Prague.
Merely to review Vrchlický's literary activity is a difficult task. His lyrical production, for example, is so extensive that two anthologies of his work have appeared, each containing over six hundred pages! He has published over forty volumes of lyric poetry, twenty dramas, together with imaginative and critical prose. Quite apart from all this original work, he has been an untiring translator. Indeed, his translations alone represent a good life's work. They include Goethe's "Faust" (both parts), Dante's works, Tasso, Ariosto, numerous poems of Victor Hugo, Schiller, Leopardi, Carducci, Spanish and English poets. His versions from Shelley, for example, are masterly. He has translated, amongst numerous other works, the "Dziady" of the Polish poet Mickiewicz, the "Crown Pretenders" of Ibsen, Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac," "L'avare" of Molière, the "Lusiad" of the Portuguese poet Camoens, and he has collaborated in versions from the Hungarian of Petöfi and Arany, from the Persian of Hafiz, and from the Chinese Shi-King. Dr. Josef Karásek says of him:—"Jaroslav Vrchlický is to-day the
