The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 56, June, 1862. Various

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1

Newspapers proper appeared as early as 1615 in Germany. But these rhymed gazettes were very numerous. They were more or less bulky pamphlets, with pithy sarcastic programmes for titles, and sometimes a wood or copper cut prefixed. A few of them were of Catholic origin, and one, entitled Post-Bole, (The Express,) is quite as good as anything issued by the opposite party.

2

Some cultivated Bohemians who can recall the glories of Ziska and his chiefs, and who comprehend the value of the tendency which they strove to represent, think that there would have grown a Bohemian people, a great centre of Protestant and Slavonic influence, if it had not been for the Battle of Weissenberg in 1620, when the Catholic Imperialists defeated their King Frederic. A verse of a popular song, The Patriot's Lament, runs thus, in Wratislaw's translation:—

If there had been a Bohemian people, preserving a real vital tendency, the Battle of the White Mountain would have resulted differently, even had it been a defeat.

Other patriots, cultivated enough to be Panslavists, indulge a more cheerful vein. They see a good time coming, and raise the cry of Hej Slované!

This is nothing but a frontier feeling. The true Slavonic centre is at St. Petersburg; thence will roll a people and a language over all kindred ground.