At the session of the Estates in Moravia in 1480, the Latin
was exchanged for the Bohemian; in Bohemia itself not before 1495. The
knowledge of the Bohemian language, which Albert duke of Bavaria had
acquired at the court of king Wenceslaus, where he was educated, had
a decided influence on the Bohemian Estates, when in 1441 they offered
him their crown. Under George Podiebrad, diebrad, a Bohemian by birth,
this language even became that of the court. After the death of
George, one of the reasons which led to the election of Vladislaus,
king of Poland, was, that the Bohemians "could hope to see elevated
through him the glory of the Bohemian nation and of the Slavic
language." [21] Under this king all ordinances and decrees were issued
in the Bohemian language, which gained prodigiously in pliancy and
extent by the application of it to different uses. The most favourable
influence on its formation, however, was effected towards the close of
the fifteenth century, by the custom which began to prevail of
studying the classics, and of translating them with all the fidelity
of which the idiom was capable. Thus fostered by judicious application
and patriotic feeling, the Bohemian language approached, with rapid
steps, the period of its _golden age_,--a time, indeed, in a political
respect, of oppression, war, and devastation; but affording a
gratifying proof, how powerfully moral means may counteract physical
causes.
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