POLITICAL POETRY

199

Several other poems in the same sense, and dating from about the same time — the end of the year 1619 — have been preserved. The battle of the White Mountain, in the following year, produced an immediate change in the views of the unscrupulous time-server Lomnicky. He celebrated the executions at Prague on June 2ist, 1621, in a ballad, of which I shall quote a few lines. The song begins thus : — " An evil beginning almost always has an evil end: He that writes this song knows that this is no lie.

Ill began

the

Calvinists,

ill ended the

Estates,

Rebels all. Yes,

roused up the whole wickedness; they

world from vain pride, from

They conspired together against his Highness (i.e. Ferdinand).

Having a king, their lord, already lawfully

chosen

And crowned.

They yet chose another for themselves, one of their band^ Who was of the Calvinist faith, of that blind community They wanted to have superiority in everything, to be lords and

j

freemen.

To insult the others!'

After this not very veracious account of the origin of the Bohemian troubles, Lomnicky refers to the details of the executions. He writes : — " Every

one received

punishment according to his offence.

He also did not remain without torment who had sinned with his tongue^ And, as the right demands, who had committed greater offence Had severer punishment.

' In Bohemian rota

(see note, p. l6i). to the celebrated Doctor Jessenius, rector of the an allusion Probably University of Prague, whom the Bohemians employed in their negotiations with Hungary, and who was famed for his eloquence. His tongue was cut out before he was decapitated, and his body was quartered after death. ^