Page:Cheskian Anthology.pdf/77

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66

And saturday comes—that's perplexing and rude-—

And sunday—with hunger—but when is the food?

We sit at the table—poor devils! to eat,

Were the table but covered, our task would be sweet.

Our cooks are sad pigmies—they cannot be less;

They needs must look small when they've nothing to dress—

Can they carve from a fog—-make of darkness a stew—

Or turn a stag's ghost to a venison ragout?

The bohemian press was in full activity during the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century—an epoch to which their historians attach the delusive title of the "golden age."—The circulation of the laws in the language of the people—its adoption for the celebration of the mass, and for the preaching of the clergy—the number of translations from classical and foreign sources, greatly contributed to enlighten and elevate the nation. Balbin's "Bohemia Docta" the works of